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ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 












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M. E. MELVIN, A.M., D.D. 


General Secretary of the Stewardship Committee, 
Presbyterian Church, U. 8. 


With Introduction by 


DAVID McCONAUGHY 
Stewardship Director, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. 





New York CuicaGco 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LoNnDON AND EpINBURGH 


Copyright, MCMXXVI, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 99 George Street 


Dedicated to 
the loyal and consecrated men of vision 
who make up the United 
Stewardship Council 
of the 

Churches of Christ 

in America 

whose inspiring fellowship the 

writer counts as one 

of the great 
blessings of his life 





INTRODUCTION 


T is the glory of Stewardship, as our Lord conceives 

and expounds it, that it lifts all life to a higher level. 

In the expressive phrase of the one hundred and thir- 
teenth Psalm, “ Who is like unto the Lord our God... that 
raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the needy 
from the dust, that he may set him with princes?” Jesus, 
with a touch or two, turned that old description into the 
imperishable picture of the Prodigal Son—one day in rags 
out in the pig-stys, the next clothed, with robe and shoes 
and ring from out the father’s overflowing cornucopia, and 
in his right mind. That is “ Royal Partnership.” And the 
author of this book opens the door into a royal palace for 
men who have hitherto been grubbing for money in the 
muck and mire of the market-place. 

Dr. Melvin is the Stewardship Director of the Presby- 
terian Church, U. S. He has also been president of the 
United Stewardship Council, which combines in its mem- 
bership representatives of all the Protestant Evangelical 
Churches of the United States and Canada. ‘This is evi- 
dence enough to guarantee his fitness to present the subject 
unfolded in the pages that follow. His is not the narrow 
view that conceives of Stewardship as synonymous with 
Tithing, nor even confines it to the sphere of money alone; 
his view reaches out to the widening horizon of life itself, 
with all that it contains. He writes daringly, but his feet 
are on a firm footing. Following in the steps of the 

Z 


8 INTRODUCTION 


Great Master, he refuses to be shackled by stereotyped 
preconceptions, and fearlessly proclaims the responsibili- 
ties of Christian Individualism, over against the rights of 
Collectivism. 

Those who will courageously press forward, along the 
trail which he has here blazed, will be rewarded by a fresh 


vision of a land of far horizons. 


Davin McConaucHY. 
New York. 


FOREWORD 


that there is a need, in the stewardship literature of 

the day, for a short, easily read presentation of the 
fundamentals involved in the property question, from the 
business man’s point of view. This is preéminently an age 
of property. Its rights and duties are being examined as 
never before. We must be ever attempting to challenge the 
attention of men of means by a clear statement of these 
rights and duties. 

The partnership viewpoint is familiar to all men, and 
from this standpoint the problem of measuring property 
values in terms of life is approached. First, property is 
considered as a subjective test of character and, second, as 
preéminently the tool of the kingdom of Christ. 

Two discoveries, for me, opened the way completely for 
this approach: First, after some research, the type of part- 
nership common in the Roman empire, with which the 
writers of the New Testament were familiar; and, second, 
the fact that fellowship and partnership are used in the New 
Testament as more or less identical terms. 

No attempt has been made to treat the subject exhaust- 
ively, because I labor under the conviction that what is 
needed more is a statement and examination of fundamen- 
tals, leaving aside technical detailed discussion. Nor has 
the attempt been to present evidence of scholarship, princi- 
pally because of the limitations imposed by nature and train- 
ing, and also because this form of presentation would fail 
in its purpose. 

Undoubtedly this discussion will not satisfy the ultra- 
conservative type of mind that minimizes the social teach- 
ings of the Gospel to the vanishing point; and, on the other 


9 


4 es conviction has grown on me in recent months 


10 FOREWORD 


hand, it will not satisfy the ultra-radical type that magnifies 
the social teachings of the Gospel to the exclusion of its 
message on individual regeneration. But it is an honest 
attempt to bring men and women to see that there can be 
no enlargement of the Christian life, on the one hand, and 
no social justice, on the other hand, unless there is the right 
attitude on the part of the individual Christian towards 
property. It is therefore addressed exclusively to people 
who are already Christian. 

It is offered with no further apology, and in the hope that 
its message will be read by thousands of business men and 
women of all communions, and be used by them in further 
study and discussion of the problems here set forth. 

Acknowledgment is made, with sincere appreciation, of 
the service rendered in reviewing the manuscript by Drs. 
R, F. Campbell, D. Clay Lilly, J. Sprole Lyons, and Walter L. 
Lingle, and by Mr. David McConaughy, who have made 
many valuable suggestions and offered helpful criticisms; 
and of the courtesy of the publishers whose copyrighted 
books are quoted, to which reference is made in the 
Bibliography. 


Chattanooga. 


CONTENTS 


FoREWORD 

CONCERNING RELATIONSHIP 
Two Worps 

First THINGS First 

THE Kincpom INSTRUMENT 
Property “Isms” . 
CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM . 
THE FIELD OF PARTNERSHIP 
THE Story oF ONE PARTNER 
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


11 


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CONCERNING RELATIONSHIP 


** Henceforth I call you not servants—but friends.”,—JOHN 15:16. 


“Oh, brother man, if you have eyes at all 
Look at a branch, a bird, a child, a rose, 
Or anything that God ever made that grows— 
Nor let the smallest vision of it slip 
Till you may read, as on Belshazzar’s wall, 
The glory of Eternal Partnership.” 
—Rosinson.} 


WO postulates of Scripture are here, first of all, 
assumed to be true, and to be the accepted faith in 
part of all Christian people. The first is that of the 

Fatherhood of God, as the Creator-Owner of all life and 
of all things. The second is that of the real, living Pres- 
ence of the Risen Christ in the world and in the common 
affairs of men. If these two assertions of Scripture are 
true, as the ripened experience of millions of Christian 
people in all ages have proved them to be true, then there 
must follow as a logical conclusion a very real and definite 
relationship between Christ, on the one hand, and the be- 
liever, on the other, in the realm of created things provided 
by the Father. 

If God equips life and Christ redeems and directs it, then 
all of life must be included, and none of it excluded, in the 
process of direction by Him. It is unworthy of Him and is 
unscriptural to admit His direction in the upper strata of 
life, which we call spiritual, and deny the same direction in 
the lower strata, which we call material. These two were 
not separated in His thought, nor in any of His statements. 





1 Reprinted by permission of the Macmillan Company, from Sonnet, 
Collected Poems, by E. A. Robinson, p. 96 


13 


14 | ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


Life is a unit. A man’s holdings in his lock-box are under 
the same direction that controls and inspires his soul when 
he comes to the communion table of his Lord. And the 
plain truth is that many redeemed men and women persist in 
attempting to separate these two areas of life in acknowledg- 
ing the direction of Christ. Herein we have the one out- 
standing reason for the tragic failure of the Church for 
twenty centuries to achieve its purpose. 

Certainly Scripture is not lacking in plain statements that 
define and limit the territory covered in life by Christ’s con- 
trol. Where, then, lies the trouble? Caution here prevents 
dogmatism. But two reasons appear plainly to any student 
of Church History, to explain the persistent effort of good 
people to limit the territory of the relationship one sustains 
to Christ to things called spiritual—that is, to affairs of the 
soul, mind and heart—and to set apart from that relationship 
all control of material things. 

The first reason dates back to the early contact of the 
Apostolic Church with heathenism. The Jewish Church 
made no such attempt. The Apostles, under the tutelage of 
our Lord, made none. They were perfectly clear in their 
thinking and their statements. But heathenism had the nat- 
ural conception of personal ownership of things. God had 
no place in their thinking as to ownership. Personal owner- 
ship is written all through the Roman law, from which the 
common law of England was written, and in turn the latter 
became the law of this country as well as of other civilized 
countries. Consequently, early Christianity suffered in hav- 
ing its teachings weakened at this point. Devout Christians 
turned to asceticism, a practise of paganism:? 





? Many pagan superstitions, ideas and practises affected the Church, 
and still linger. Among them particularly is the idea of property 
ownership. Trench in his Study of Words gives the origin and mean- 
ing of the word pagan: ‘“ The Christian Church fixed itself first in 
the seats and centers of intelligence in the towns and cities of the 
Roman empire, and in them its first triumphs were won; while long 
after these had accepted the truth, heathen superstitions and idola- 
tries lingered on in the obscure hamlets and villages of the country; 
so that pagans, or villagers, came to be applied to all the remaining 
votaries of the old and decaying superstitions, inasmuch as the far 


CONCERNING RELATIONSHIP 15 


“Tf ownership is accepted as the true doctrine of property, then 
asceticism is its necessary religious accompaniment. The sin of 
covetousness lies very deep in the human heart, and both philos- 
ophy and religion have sought in vain to dislodge it. Their argu- 
ment has always been the same, and the logic of it is imperative. 
Here it is: The ownership of riches and the increase of material 
wealth clog the higher spiritual nature; therefore, the cure of 
covetousness is poverty. To the sincere soul that seeks free- 
dom from the cloying cares of property, heathenism has ever 
the same monotonous reply: ‘This wealth of yours, get rid of 
it.” ”’—Calkins, A Man and His Money. 


The modern Christian is affected by this false doctrine of 
things more than he perhaps suspects. His sub-conscious 
reasoning, if reduced to writing, would be about as follows: 
“Money, property, things, are essentially evil and filthy, and 
must be separated from things of the spirit. To be com- 
pletely surrendered, I shall have to rid myself of all these— 
which I am not yet willing to do. I shall count these sordid 
material things as necessary evils and encumbrances, mean- 
while yielding to His control in spiritual things.” And thus 
the unity of life is arbitrarily destroyed, and Christ shut out 
from the area that affects it most. 

An illustration of this attitude: An officer of the church, 
devout and sincere, was recently attending a church confer- 
ence where plans and methods were being discussed for en- 
larged income and the extension work of the Church. He 
listened for a time, then arose in fervent passion to say: “I 
thought I came here to discuss the affairs of the Kingdom— 
and you are spending your time talking about money!” 
Another officer came to a meeting of his church session 
where financial plans were under discussion. He too pro- 
tested, by saying: “All this concerns filthy lucre—let the 
deacons handle it.”” One marvels that the Church has made 
the progress it has made with this pernicious and arbitrary 





greater number of them were in this class.” A pagan is one who is 
further defined as “ holding a position analogous to that of a heathen 
in relation to a Christian society.” 


16 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


setting apart of a large portion of life as outside the rela- 
tionship controlled by Christ. 

The second reason for this attitude on the part of so many 
people lies in the failure of the ministry to declare the whole 
“counsel of God.” This is not true of the ministry of this 
age in particular. There is a marked improvement today 
over a generation ago. But for nineteen centuries, it can 
be said by and large, the ministry has avoided giving to the 
people the scriptural teaching as to the control of Christ 
over things, money, property, in the proportion that its im- 
portance to the development of life deserves. They too 
have been unconsciously influenced by the practical dual- 
ism of pagan thought. If one doubts this, let him make a 
search among the printed sermons of any century since 
Apostolic days. Let him study the hymnology of the 
Church, to find this note missing. How often today do we 
hear a pastor in apologetic terms refer to “ material things,” 
as if they were unholy and unworthy of the mastery of 
Christ, and to be counted apart from “ spiritual things”! 
One pastor recently made a labored effort to draw a distinc- 
tion between a material stewardship and a spiritual steward- 
ship. ‘They cannot be separated, and Christ never intended 
that they should be. 

It is in an effort to make more real and definite that com- 
plete relationship to Christ in all areas that this book is 
written. To the one who does not fully accept the two 
postulates first laid down, there will be herein only a vague 
message. For the one who does, the attempt is made at 
least to indicate a way for vitalizing faith and religious ex- 
perience—a way shunned by the evangelist, neglected by too 
many pastors, and deliberately avoided by the believer. It 
is a step without which one will not climb to higher levels 
of religious life. That way concerns the use of property as 
a subjective test and an objective instrument for working 
out a fellowship or partnership with Jesus Christ. There is 
no primary concern in this message with an increase in 
benevolent funds, nor an enlarged giving of money, but only 


CONCERNING RELATIONSHIP 17 


with the one simplest and most fundamental way of deepen- 
ing the faith of men and the enlargement of their Christian 
life. Giving will follow as effect follows cause. 

The appeal to men is here subjective. Too much has the 
Church placed its major emphasis on the objective appeal; 
that of supporting missions, for example, solely because of 
the need for missions. The Church has had its pew rents, 
charity boxes, poor funds, suppers, and a thousand other 
schemes for increasing its income, all of which emphasize 
the needs outside a man. Too long has it neglected to show 
men that the first and great consideration in handling prop- 
erty and things has to do with their own enlargement of 
heart and soul, and the sustaining of a perfect relationship 
to the Living Christ. 

Much of our instruction and preaching has been too 
mystical and ethereal to be grasped by plain people. We 
leave them vainly looking at the stars, when our Lord 
plainly pointed them first to things at their feet. A child 
learns the multiplication table before it learns algebra. 
Let us begin with the “multiplication table” of relig- 
ious life. 

Every prophet is proclaiming what the world needs most, 
of course, in terms of his own interpretation. To one, it is 
“ surrendered lives;’ to another it is “more faith in God;” 
to another, “more vital religion.” All of these are admit- 
tedly true, but the one surest and withal easiest way to bring 
these about is rarely heard proclaimed. We are considering 
here those who are already converted but who need to be 
shown how to surrender and where, rather than to have 
preached to them a mystical doctrine of surrender. 

A man said to an unusually successful evangelist recently: 
“That which holds back the progress of the Kingdom more 
than any other one thing is the wrong attitude of Christian 
people on property. You evangelists ought to recognize 
this, and give more attention to it.” The reply was: “The 
trouble with them is they are not fully surrendered.” To be 
sure, but the problem is to point out to honest and sincere 


18 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


people the simple way to surrender, and not just to talk 
about it. 

In whatever varied ways the problems of the Church may 
be stated, it can surely be said that the Church may expect 
no very great advance unless and until it puts its own house 
in order. We must start with church people. And this may 
be further resolved into the problem of relationship. The 
relationship the believer sustains to our Lord, properly en- 
tered into and realized in all its possibilities, makes of him 
an efficient working unit. A large part of life has been 
removed from that relationship, as we have seen. Any dis- 
cussion, therefore, that deals with primary steps to bring 
about that full relationship is not only timely but is funda- 
mental to the progress of the Church. 

Broadly speaking, there are two hemispheres in one’s life. 
One centers in Being, and the other centers in Doing. The 
one concerns personality and its relationship to God. The 
other has to do with service, activity, the use of things. 
Since no one word is broad enough to cover both, Scripture 
uses two sets of words to define these two relationships. In 
the realm of Being our relationship is to God, Creator, 
Owner, Master, Lord, Redeemer, Saviour. The agencies 
employed for perfecting this relationship are: The Holy 
Spirit, the Word, the Sacraments, Prayer. The objective is 
personal salvation. The test is faith, Here God speaks 
with the voice of authority. The language is, “ Thou shalt.” 
His word is final, and is given in terms of orders. But in 
the realm of Doing another set of words define the relation- 
ship: Elder-Brother, Friend, Co-laborer, Branch, Steward, 
Partner. The agencies employed for perfecting the relation- 
ship here are talents, things, property: “ Inasmuch as ye did 
it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me.” The objective 
is rewards. The test is the use of things. 

Now especially note that here our Lord does not speak 
with the voice of a command and in terms of orders, but 
with the voice of persuasion, plea, entreaty and suggestion. 
One orders a servant, but pleads with a friend. In the fif- 


CONCERNING RELATIONSHIP 19 


teenth chapter of John, fifteenth verse, our Lord sounds a 
note new in the thinking of the old civilizations of the world 
at that time: “Henceforth, I call you not servants, but 
friends.” The old world had known but two classes of 
people; namely, Lord and servant, master and slave, king 
and subject. It was something new for the Lord of all to 
take his servants into the secret of His counsels and deal 
with them as friends. It must be kept closely in mind that 
our Lord in discussing the service of his “ friends” and 
their relationship to Him as such always pointed the right 
way, but left the course to their sense of honor, without the 
injunction of a command. For example, He never ordered 
Zaccheus to restore or divide his property. When Zaccheus 
had done it, He commended him and said: “ This day is 
salvation come to thy house.” On being asked to act as 
judge, in the division of a property, He said: ‘“ Who made 
me a judge or divider over you?” To the Rich Young 
Ruler, He gave advice, but not an order. In other words, 
we are here face to face with a definite relationship which 
our Lord set up between His followers and Himself, and in 
which He left a large measure of discretion and judgment to 
them. They were now “ friends.” Now, where the pathway 
is marked by orders, responsibility is lessened. Where honor 
and judgment are given full play, responsibility is increased. 
It 1s easier to be a servant than a friend or partner. 

Men have often wondered why our Lord failed to enjoin 
the tithe of the Old Testament by direct order. May His 
“henceforth” in John 15:15 not serve to explain the si- 
lence? Not that the tithe was any less desirable or impor- 
tant than formerly, but “henceforth” He was leaving 
something to the sense of honor in men. He had lifted men 
to a new level over the old dispensation. They were, in the 
field of service at least, His Co-laborers, Friends and Part- 
ners. The schoolmaster period of the law was over, and 
now they were ready to develop a sense of responsibility in 
handling the things provided by the Father in codperation 
with Him. 


20 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


It is in this area of Doing where most of the tragic fail- 
ures of Christian people of all ages have occurred. It is the 
breakdown here that explains the slow progress of the 
Church. Manifestly, to accept the teachings of our Lord 
with authority in spiritual things that concern forgiven sin, 
peace of mind, reconciliation with God, and then to ignore 
or treat lightly His plea for a high-minded honor in ethical 
conduct, makes for a lopsided development of life. Men 
follow Him to the Cross for personal salvation and ignore 
His teaching on money. Men worship Him as God, and 
decline to share with Him His world task. Men declare 
their faith in Him and whine that His teaching on ai 
is impractical in a business world. 


II 


TWO WORDS 


“God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son, 
Jesus Christ, our Lord.’—1 Cor. 1:9. 


“ Every mason in the quarry, 
Every builder on the shore; 
Every woodman in the forest, 
Every boatman at the oar, 
Sawing wood or drawing water, 
Splitting stone or cleaving sod; 
All the dusty ranks of labor— 
In the regiment of God— 
March together toward His temple, 
Do the work His hands prepare, 
Faithful toil is holy service, 
Honest work is praise and prayer.” 
—vAN DYKE. 


FE, are now ready to study two words in the New 

Testament used to set forth a relationship to 

Christ in the area of Doing, fellowship and part- 
nership. ‘These two words are used interchangeably and 
come from one Greek word, koinonos. From this word we 
get our own, words common and communion. It means to 
be a sharer in, a partaker of, to become associated with, 
used variously as a verb, noun and adjective. 

In Luke 5:10 James and John, two brothers, with a 
friend, Simon Peter, are described as partners in operating 
a little fishing business. It is important to note that in verse 
7 it is said: “ They beckoned to their partners.’ This is a 
different word, rarely used, of which Vincent in his Word 
Studies says: “It might have indicated hired workmen, while 
the word used in verse 10 denotes a closer association.” 
Paul describes Titus as his pariner in 2 Cor. 8:23, using 
koinonos. The same word appears again in Philemon 17: 


21 


22 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


b 


“Count me a pariner;” and again in 2 Peter 1:4: “ par- 
takers of the divine nature;” in 1 Peter 5:1, “ partaker of 
the glory that shall be revealed;” in 2 Cor. 1:7, “ partakers 
of the sufferings.’ In the following places koinonia 
(felowship-partnership) is used: 1 Cor. 1:9, “God is 
faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his 
Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord;”’ 1 John 1:3, “truly our fel- 
lowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ ;” 
Phil. 3: 10, “that I may know him and the fellowship of his 
sufferings ;”’ 1 Cor. 10:16, “the cup of blessing—is it not 
the communion of the blood of Christ? ” 

There are many other references, but these are sufficient 
to establish the fact that we have throughout the New Testa- 
ment one Greek word for which we employ two English 
words, fellowship and partnership. The word used to de- 
scribe that most sacred of all occasions in the believer’s life, 
when he approaches the table of his Lord, is the same word 
used to describe partners in fishing; sharers in the covenant 
‘blessings of redemption and sharers in property; partner- 
ship in the sufferings of Christ and partnership in business. 
The essential thing to keep in mind here is that fellowship 
and partnership in the New Testament denote the same 
thing. Hodge says, in commenting on one of these passages: 
“Parties are said to be in communion when they are so 
united that what belongs to one belongs to the other.” 

Until about 1600 A. p. the word partnership had a much 
wider application than now. In the English literature prior 
to 1800, parinership and fellowship were often used as 
identical terms. 


“Would not this, Sir, get me a fellowship 
In a cry of players?” 
—Shakespeare, Hamlet III: 2. 


In a translation of Xenophon by Bingham, in 1623, occurs 
this: “They would enter into a fellowship of warre with 
the Grecians,” meaning partnership. Hutton, in 1806, in his 
Course in Mathematics, giving the rule for business partner- 


TWO WORDS 23 


ships, wrote, “ Fellowship is either single or double.” Even 
as late as 1859 Smith’s Arithmetic wrote the two as equiva- 
lents. We can now more clearly understand why the trans- 
lators of the King James Version of the Bible used the word 
fellowship so often as for example in translating 1 Cor. 
1:9. To them fellowship and partnership were practically 
synonymous, 

Our present-day usage of the word partnership has there- 
fore been very much narrowed by the prevailing ideas of 
legal contracts in business relationships as between the par- 
ties to a partnership. Most writers who approach the prob- 
lem of the relationship between Christ and the believer in 
the field of property avoid the use of the term partnership, 
frankly conceding that the term is too legal to set forth ade- 
quately the full relationship. This concession is too hastily 
made. We must get back to the New Testament use of the 
word; and when we do, we find that the term is the best 
possible one to use. It denotes a close cooperation and 
friendly association in the work of a common task that no 
other word can denote. It bespeaks an intimacy that the 
word steward does not suggest; it involves duties that the 
word agent does not carry; it embraces in the territory cov- 
ered not only things material, but a participation in the 
sufferings and likewise the glory of Christ. 

This, then, is “ Royal Partnership ”—to be invited by Him 
to manage His property, to divide profits, to share losses, to 
accumulate and administer with Him, and to partake of the 
benefits of the blood covenant at the communion table, and 
share with Him the “glory that shall be.” Can any man, 
then, look upon such a relationship lightly? Can any man 
who grasps the full content of this term, come with pious 
composure to the communion table and share there, while 
at the same time he withholds his property accumulations 
from the operation of this partnership? Let it be said again, 
it is just because men persist in seeking to make this separa- 
tion, that the Kingdom of God is delayed. 

With the discussion that has preceded, we are now pre- 


24: ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


pared to draw rather narrow limits, and henceforth confine 
it to the partnership with Christ in the field of property. 
Men do not need especially an emphasis on this partnership 
in the upper strata of life, of which the communion table is 
an example. But because they have not carried down their 
thought of partnership to the lower levels of life careful 
thinking and plain speaking becomes a necessity, if the 
Church is to meet the issues of the day. It will be necessary, 
then, to embrace in this study some of the many theories of 
property which have been advanced in the past in an attempt 
to solve the problems of social injustice. The discussion 
may take us apparently far afield, but we shall come back to 
the attitude of our Lord on property as the only practical 
solution of an age-old problem, and partnership with Him 
therein as the only working basis. 

Let us now look into the matter of partnerships from the 
point of view of the law textbooks. A very interesting dis- 
covery meets us at the threshold; namely, the character of 
the ordinary partnership under the Roman Law, with which 
our Lord and the Apostles were familiar. 


“Partnerships are of ancient origin. Under the Roman Law a 
partnership was founded on confidence, independent of contract. 
The partners were usually relatives acting as mutual trustees for 
each other, and shared the profits in proportion to the contribu- 
tion made by each to the common fund. During the Middle Ages 
when trade was carried on under great difficulties, partnership 
assumed its modern form. .. . According to the common law (of 
England, which came from the Roman Law) a partnership was 
nothing more than an association of individuals."—Modern Am. 
Law, Vol. IX, pp. 293, 4. 


This quotation makes the case of the three friends, oper- 
ating a fishing business as described in Luke 5:10, very 
interesting. They were kiononoi, partners. We cannot 
imagine Peter, James and John going to some lawyer and 
having a long legal document drawn up, with a lot of “ afore- 
saids”” and “ hereinafters” set forth. No, they merely got 


TWO WORDS 25 


together, bought a boat in common, fished every day (except 
the Sabbath and the full of the moon and bad weather), sold 
their catch, divided their profits, and thus supported their 
families. We must keep this case in mind, because it is 
typical of a Roman law partnership, and moreover was the 
kind familiar to the writers of the New Testament. 


“Tn general, a partnership was the voluntary association of two 
or more persons for the purpose of gain or sharing in the work 
and profits of any enterprise.... The partnership of modern 
legal systems is based upon the societas of Roman law. No 
formalities were necessary for the constitution of a soctetas. 
Either property or labor must be contributed by the socius; if 
one party contributed neither property nor labor, or if one partner 
was to share in the loss, but not in the profit, there was no true 
societas, ... Partners may agree what shall and what shall not 
be partnership property. But a partner may not make use of 
anything belonging to the firm for his private purposes. If so, 
he must account to his firm for any profit he may make.”—Enc. 
Britannica. 


There are today two theories among the jurists on part- 
nerships. The first is that of a corporation, which, in law, 
is regarded as a separate entity, from the stockholders. 
With this conception we have nothing here to do, although it 
may unconsciously bias the thinking of men as they approach 
the matter of partnership with Christ. The second is that 
of an association of individuals, which is becoming less 
common as our highly organized industrial life develops. It 
is this conception of a partnership that must be held to in 
our discussion. 

The courts have had great difficulty in defining partner- 
ships. George, on Partnership, says: “Indeed, some of the 
best minds that have grappled with the subject have been 
reluctant to formulate a definition.” A partnership is not 
an agency, according to the author just referred to: 


“The law of partnership is closely connected with the law of 
agency. A partnership is a sort of agency, but a peculiar one, 


26 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


If an agreement for the conduct of a business and a sharing of 
the profits results in joint ownership of profits, the parties are 
partners. If the agreement does not make the parties joint own- 
ers of the profits, but one takes a part because of service ren- 
dered, he is an agent. The ultimate and conclusive test of a 
partnership is the co-ownership of the profits of the business.” 


Societies and clubs not organized for profit are not con- 
sidered partnerships. Pecuniary gain as a motive must 
always be found in any true partnership. One more author- 
ity is offered on partnerships: 


“The English law on partnerships is derived from the common 
law and from the Roman law. Both require a partnership to be 
in good faith and for a lawful purpose; that all partners must 
contribute something, whether of property or skill to the common 
stock. Both require a community in profits and, to a more lim- 
ited extent, community in losses. In the absence of express agree- 
ment, both require equal division of profits. A Roman partner 
could not bind the firm by debt, nor alienate more than his share 
of the partnership property.”’—Meecham. 


It is generally agreed that the following constitute essen- 
tial elements of a partnership: 


. An unincorporated association ; 

. Created not by law, but by voluntary agreement; 

. Requires two or more competent parties ; 

. Involves a contribution by members of money, property, 
skill, labor, credit and the like; 

5. Contemplates the transaction of some lawful business; 

6. The purpose is pecuniary gain. 3 


ft WN ee 


May we go back to our fishing business on the Sea of 
Galilee with James, John and Peter? There are four very 
plain implications in their partnership; namely, codperation, 
industry, faith, honesty. Each one did his part. James 
never loafed while the others fished. Each trusted the 
other. And neither one tried to slip aside the biggest fish at 
the end of the day. They were honest with each other. To 


TWO WORDS 27 


rob any man is bad enough, but to steal from a trusting 
partner is the worst type of dishonesty. We may need this 
principle again before our discussion closes. 

It must be admitted that any human analogy when pressed 
too far in order to illustrate the relationship of the believer 
to Christ, will break down. We are called sons of God, but 
we cannot press human sonship too far as an illustration. 
The same is true of the partnership relation to Him. Es- 
pecially must we be guarded at the point of the ownership 
of the capital provided by Him. Scripture repeats over and 
over again that God owns, and not man. With this and 
other minor reservations, we can with immeasurable profit 
study our relationship to Christ from the point of view of 
our common understanding of partnerships. 

Every man should pause to ask himself what part he 
actually contributes to the capital with which he works. 
The Master-Partner provides the soil, the climate, the raw 
materials. Society furnishes the market. The only contri- 
bution which the individual makes to the partnership is the 
skill and energy used. A group of engineers, a few years 
ago, undertook to estimate the actual portion a farmer, for 
example, contributes to his successful farming operations. 
The conclusion was five per cent; other factors such as soil, 
climate and market, ninety-five per cent. 

Does any one shrink from the thought of making partner- 
ship with Him in part, at least, to consist of pecuniary gain? 
Why so? Shall we be forever bound by the old pagan idea 
of the essential evil of material things? Did not God in the 
very beginning enjoin on men to be “ fruitful and multiply 
and replenish the earth”? Is there anything unholy in 
making money with Him? In fact, the time has come to 
dignify money-making as a holy calling, if entered into as a 
partnership with Him. Too long have our business men 
been made to feel that money-making is a sordid game. 
‘The sordidness comes only when it is carried on outside 
of partnership with Him and not with Him. Men, whose 
God given talent is to make money, have been lampooned and 


28 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


berated by so called reformers both in the pulpit and out of 
it. Some one needs to rise to the defense of the business man 
who is contributing his talent to the Partnership union with 
his Lord. This is what he can best do and he needs en- 
couragement, not abuse. Let him make all the money he can 
in a legitimate way, and then lead him to see the possibilities 
ahead both for himself and his Lord by entering full partner- 
ship with Him. No one thinks of denouncing the artist or 
the musician for using his talent to the fullest. Why should 
a business man be discredited for using his talent? 

Our business men hold the key to the solution of the prob- 
lems confronting the Church today. They are in position to 
wrest from the control of Christ all the lower areas of life, 
or they may by proper leadership and training admit Him 
there to complete control. When He is thus admitted fully 
then may the Church look for events undreamed of. This is 
His world; He has a Program; He has invited men into 
fellowship and partnership with Him to carry that Program 
through. 

We are dealing here with a new ideal. God says, “ We”; 
a man may say, “God and I.” Whose world? Ours. 
Whose program? Ours. “All things are yours, and ye are 
Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:23). With this 
attitude, a man can come with a pure heart to Him and ask 
for profits and success, with the assurance that his Silent 
Partner will Himself be honored by the plea. On the other 
hand, what right has a Christian business man to ask Him 
for direction and profits when he knows, and Jesus knows, 
that the profits will be used only for the man’s own inter- 
ests? But with the partner attitude he can say to Him: 
“This is our business, and I need you today on a problem 
I cannot solve. Rocks loom up ahead, and I need your hand 
at the wheel.” And His hand will take the wheel! 

This is not the time and place to discuss the difference 
between making a “contribution” and “dividing profits” 
with a partner. Of that, something will be said later on. It 
is now sufficient to say only that when men come to the 


TWO WORDS 29 


partner attitude, they will never again refer to their making 
a contribution. The details of the application of the partner- 
ship law will have to be left to the reader as he goes back 
over the authorities quoted and seeks to see in the general 
principles laid down a parallel between the ordinary business 
partnership and the one between himself and Christ. 

The best feature of it all is that this attitude makes more 
real than anything else possibly can, the living Presence of 
Christ in the lives of men, and opens the way for an experi- 
ence such as Paul had when he exclaimed: “I know whom 
I have believed.” The material is always the door to the 
spiritual. The human process of generation, birth and 
growth, for illustration. Men are not suddenly transported 
into the higher areas of spiritual life without going through 
the doorway of the material. Does a man lack joy in his 
religious faith? Does he feel that much of the “ religious 
experience’ referred to in the pulpit is above and beyond 
his practical nature? Let him enter partnership with Christ 
by His invitation, on the very lowest level, that of partner- 
ship in money-making. One step must be taken at a time. 
The addition table, then the multipication table, then higher 
mathematics later on, this is the rule of mental growth—and 
of spiritual growth as well. 


III 


FIRST THINGS FIRST 


“ But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness ; and all these 
things shall be added unto you.’’—Matt. 6: 


“The common problem, yours, mine, everyone’s, 
Is—not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be—but finding first 
What may be. Then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means; a very different thing! 

No abstract intellectual plan of life, 
Quite irrespective of life’s plainest laws, 
But one a man who is a man and nothing more 
May lead within a world which (by your leave) 
Is Rome or London, not Fool’s Paradise.” 
—ROBERT BROWNING. 


OME definitions and distinctions are now in order. 

The word property is used herein in a generic sense, 

to include, for the sake of brevity, real and personal 
property, dividends, income, rents, wages and, broadly 
speaking, all things of value. The fine distinctions of the 
economist are not here necessary. We may, moreover, profit 
by thinking of partnership in the field of things, and fellow- 
ship in the field of spirit. However, the one begins that 
which the other consummates. Root, branch and fruit are 
united in a life process. 

That which we are trying to say with most emphasis in 
this book is that there can be no full fellowship with Christ 
without a full sense of partnership to begin with. In the 
development of Christian character partnership with Christ 
in the field of things is basic. This is the “ first thing” that 
must come first. We have, admittedly, not been trained to 
think this way. We take a new convert into the Church and 
begin at once to talk to him in terms of higher mathematics, 
so to speak, of spiritual life and growth, instead of putting 


30 


FIRST THINGS FIRST 31 


him to learning the addition table. We assume that he is 
ready for the higher rungs of the ladder, when he has never 
learned the first lesson of climbing to the first rung. That 
is, he has never seen and known that his first responsibility 
is to learn to deal with Christ in handling things. 

Property, being a very important part of God’s world of 
persons, has a two-fold use; first as a subjective test of 
character, and second as an objective instrument for His 
Kingdom use. The second use will engage our attention 
later on. We are concerned here only with the first. 

Now, this question must be faced honestly, fearlessly and 
with an open mind. Is it necessary that a man settle first - 
of all the problem of his attitude to property, when he comes 
into the Kingdom of fellowship with Christ? Forget for 
the moment the religious element in this problem, and con- 
sider the normal growth of the average child from birth to 
maturity. His physical, mental and spiritual development 
begin as he learns to use things. His growth increases in 
all directions with an increasing. knowledge of material 
things and of how to use them; of their relationship to life; 
their proper function; their limitations. He learns to use 
them for higher purposes, until he comes at last to see that 
things are but the “ scaffolding of personality.” The growth 
of the Christian is not very different in its normal process. 
As a child learns first of all to crawl, then to walk and then 
to run, just so the Christian must first learn to crawl, before 
he can run the Christian race. Again, take a cross-section 
out of life from one’s own acquaintances and look at it care- 
fully. Consider people in the Church, all sorts of people, 
the good, the better and the best. Not a single case has ever 
been found yet of a Christian of great enthusiasms, rich in 
experience, an ardent personal worker, devout and conse- 
crated, who has not before he reached this stage settled the 
property question between himself and his Lord. Let com- 
mon sense and daily experience answer whether it is neces- 
sary for a man to learn first of all his relationship to things. 

We have been led astray in our thinking in the past be- 


32 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


cause of the old pagan idea that affected Christianity in the 
early centuries, that things are essentially evil and that the 
material must be separated from the spiritual. 


“ Farth’s crammed with heaven ! 
And every common bush afire with God.” 
—Elizabeth B. Browning. 


“ The visible is the ladder up to the invisible; the temporal is 
but the scaffolding of the eternal. And when the last immaterial 
souls have climbed through this material to God, the scaffolding 
shall be taken down, and the earth dissolved with fervent heat— 
not because it was base, but because its work is done.”—Henry 
Drummond. 


We must learn that property has a definite place and func- 
tion in God’s scheme of life and that to ignore it or despise 
it as a test of character is radically and fundamentally 
wrong. Have we not been placing the emphasis at the 
wrong place in our Lord’s injunction, “Seek ye first the 
Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you”’? Most of us read it as if the in- 
junction is to seek in order to get in, as one strives to enter 
an exclusive set. The emphasis ought to be on the Kingdom, 
meaning that one’s first duty is to place the interests of the 
Kingdom first, counting on all other important things to 
follow as a consequence. No living man can put the inter- 
ests of the Kingdom first who begins by excluding property 
from the partnership control of his Lord. 

According as one places the emphasis in this statement of 
our Lord will be his attitude towards property and the King- 
dom of God. By placing it as first indicated, we can never 
build a social order of human brotherhood. It means: “ Let 
every fellow shift for himself.” By placing the emphasis 
where it should be we can build an order of social justice 
that will hasten the Kingdom. Was it by accident that our 
Lord had so much to say on this matter of one’s attitude to 
money, property and things? A very large majority of the 


FIRST THINGS FIRST : 33 


parables deal with it, and many of His sayings. In fact, He 
had much more to say about this than any other one thing. 
Surely He knew human nature. He repeatedly emphasized 
the importance of settling the property question first in one’s 
relationship to His Kingdom. 


“His profound insight into human nature and experience saved 
Him from the mistake, which has so often vitiated religious 
thought and practice, of treating the religious life as distinct and 
separable from the total life of man. He was no teacher of 
economics, but He was profoundly interested in questions of 
poverty and wealth because—but only because—the economic con- 
ditions of men react so powerfully upon their spiritual lives... . 
To bring disobedient wills into free and loving subjection to the 
divine will, and thus establish a moral and spiritual Kingdom of 
God, was His purpose. It is only from this fundamental pre- 
supposition that we can proceed to estimate aright His specific 
utterances about wealth—or, indeed, about anything else. Per- 
haps the failure to keep this basal assumption of His thought in 
mind has led to much confusion in the interpretation of His 
teaching on this important subject.”—-Gardner, Ethics of Jesus. 


The use of property by the individual may be likened to 
the use of chisel and mallet by the sculptor. The day will 
come when his mental image will have taken form in marble, 
and then, and not till then, may he throw away his tools. 
In the meantime they are indispensable. All through Scrip- 
ture, property and money are related very intimately to wor- 
ship and to fellowship with God. 


“Money cannot buy character, but it is the material out of 
which character is made; money cannot buy a home, yet homes 
are made out of money; money cannot buy a poem, yet it is” 
through money that a poem is given a body on the printed page; 
money cannot buy friendship, yet our possessions are the physical 
stuff out of which we manufacture friendship. Money is the 
most romantic and most potent thing in all the world. To a 
large extent it forms the epitome of our life, revealing in almost 
every case what we really are. Only when we put things in their 
proper relation to life can we understand the full import of the 


34 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


New Testament teaching on Stewardship.”—Morrill, You and 
Yours. 


But a protest is often voiced in language like this: “ Get 
a man’s heart, and you get his money.” ‘This is one of those 
half-truths in common circulation and honestly believed by 
many people. It is the same as saying of a patient in the 
hospital, that when he is well we can get a foot-race out of 
him; or of saying that when we have reached the inner ~ 
vault in the bank, we then have the combination to the vault. 
With the sick man it is a problem of treatment to get him 
out. With entrance to the vault, it is a problem of knowing 
the combination. And the combination to the average man’s 
heart is spelled P-R-0-p-E-R-T-y. Cause and effect are ter- 
ribly mixed up in that half-truth so often quoted. 

Let us begin to study the typical Christian business man 
in the Church. He is regenerated, converted, prays and has 
saving faith, but has never come into a sense of real living 
partnership with Christ. How shall his heart be reached? 
By preaching consecration to him? Ah, no, but rather by 
sitting down with him quietly and inducing him to try an 
experiment with Christ in the accumulation and administra- 
tion of things. It does not require any great degree of 
faith to do this. It is the first step towards reaching his 
heart. No man who has ever tried it has failed to come out 
of the experiment without a warmer and larger heart and 
a more living and real faith in the personal Presence of the 
Silent Partner. Theology is indispensable in its place, but 
we have allowed our views of theology to hide some very 
plain paths indicated by common sense in dealing with 
everyday men. 

Again, the case of the Macedonian Christians referred to 
by Paul in 2 Cor. 8: 1-6 is often cited as an illustration of 
how people must first give themselves. Paul says of them 
that they “first gave their own selves to the Lord.” Re- 
cently a speaker dealing with the theme here being discussed 
resolved the whole problem into this, that we must get people 


FIRST THINGS FIRST 35 


to give themselves first. How simple! It completely side- 
steps the most difficult part of the problem. Why not face 
the issue squarely and attack the problem in the main citadel, 
property? Why do not people, just ordinary Christian peo- 
ple of whom the Church is full, give themselves? There is 
one reason in the main, their wrong attitude towards prop- 
erty, for which the Church is largely to blame. Reverting 
to the case of the Macedonians quoted, have we failed to 
observe that in verse 2 Paul speaks of their “deep poverty”? 
Of course, they gave themselves first! There was little else 
to give. This passage is worth much because it indicates 
the behavior of poverty. 

Is it not true today, that the Church has little difficulty in 
preaching consecration to those who are very poor? But 
the Church is not made up principally of very poor people. 
We are just beating the air in talking to the rank and file of 
Christian people, most of whom have property, money, 
things, or are bending all of their energies in that direction, 
when we preach to them first to give themselves. If the 
school-boy is working his problem in algebra wrong, we stop 
him and show him where he made the error in starting. 
Even at the risk of repetition, it must be said again that the 
vast majority of Christian people have begun wrong, with 
a thoroughly paganized idea of property, which profoundly 
affects their own life and the Kingdom of God. A great 
many of the plans of the Church for a revival, for personal 
evangelism, for deepening the spiritual life of the Church, 
begin too far up and take too much for granted. That far- 
sighted prophet of the American pulpit, Horace Bushnell, 
had this in mind when he said that the next great revival 
would be a revival of Christian Stewardship. 


“Property and Pentecost—can it be that they are related? Is 
the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit capable of such crude 
and common interpretation? But loyalty is not crude, and fidelity 
is sweeter than honey and the honey comb. Property is not a 
sordid thing; it is a messenger of the covenant intercepted in its 
royal ministry by human covetousness. Pentecost restored it to 


36 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


its rightful place in the Kingdom of God.”—Calkins, A Man and 
His Money. 


It would be most profitable here, if space permitted, to 
study the whole book of Malachi and especially the third 
chapter. Israel had forgotten God and turned away to other 
gods; by unbelief they had lost faith in and touch with 
Deity. Their difficulty was fundamentally spiritual. God 
calls them to return and, in doing so, offers to get down on a 
level of the material, that they may “prove” Him. He 
could condescend no further. Would they know whether 
there be a God; whether He hears prayer and takes an in- 
terest in common life; would they be willing to test His 
presence and power? God here put first things first. He 
directed that they return by way, first, of property, their use 
of things, their strict payment of the tithe. And the prom- 
ise was that the windows of heaven would be open in re- 
sponse, with a blessing such as they would have no room 
to receive. 

Human nature has not changed since the days of Malachi. 
Does the Church today really want a revival? Bushnell was 
right. God has indicated the way and the only way. Things, 
instead of being segregated from life, must be articulated 
with life. We must bring men to see that, if God is shut 
out in the lower levels of life, He will, humanly speaking, 
be automatically shut out in the upper levels. 


“Things—that is, money, wealth, one’s possessions—are not 
simply material to the Christian steward; they are vehicles for 
expressing the spiritual life of man. They are the stuff out of 
which Christian character is composed. Things are the temple 
of the Holy Ghost as are our bodies. In and through them the 
Holy Spirit lets loose the tremendous streams of His spiritual 
power and glory. We cannot separate the spiritual from the 
material in human life. Material things are made a symbol and 
an expression of our spiritual natures. In very truth, thought 
can come to life only through matter. In this world in which 
God has put us it is the flesh that gives birth to the spirit. 


FIRST THINGS FIRST 37 


“This is why the world of business must be made a temple of 
holy worship. Things are not alien enemies of the soul, sordid 
and unclean. They are the holy sacred vessels of God, in which 
God Himself, His love and care, is conveyed to us, and in which 
man moulds his life, his ambitions, his ideals, his courage, his 
hope, his love, his good will for the building of the Kingdom of 
God on the earth. Money is not ‘filthy lucre’ in itself but only 
in its use. Let not the preacher say that it is evil, for men will 
not believe him. Conflagration and flood may carry devastation, 
yet no man will believe that fire and water are other than human 
benison. Money is power. If evil men seek after power, by how 
much more ought righteous men to covet it! It is therefore less 
than intelligent to cry down the race for riches; and because it is, 
unintelligent men will not heed the preaching that warns them of 
their wealth. If a saving gospel shall find the rich men of today, 
and reach the men who shall be rich tomorrow, it must recognize 
material values as they actually exist, and then exalt those values 
into spiritual potency. It must be the preacher and not the pro- 
moter who calls men to be rich. The subtle currents that lift and 
depress value must be recognized as spiritual forces. Money 
must not be left a sordid thing in the alleys of avarice; it must 
be enthroned among the spiritual gifts which good men covet. 
The Christian ideal of holiness must be exalted before our youth 
—loyalty commanding all power.”—Calkins, 4 Man and His 
Money. fm 


IV 


THE KINGDOM INSTRUMENT 


“ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me.”,—Marrt. 25: 40. 


““To, it is I, be not afraid! 
In many climes without avail 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 
Behold it is here—this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 
This water His blood that died on the tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another’s need; 
Not what we give but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three— 
Himself, his hungering neighbor and Me.’” 

—LoweE.u, “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 


a subjective test of character. We have seen that a 

full and true fellowship or partnership with Christ 
is impossible if one does not include the factors that affect 
life most in the lower levels. We are now ready to con- 
sider property as the objective instrument for building the 
Kingdom of Christ. 

In the very beginning it is necessary to have a clear idea 
of the meaning of “The Kingdom of Christ.” In varied 
forms the phrase occurs 112 times in the Gospels; the word 
“Church” occurs twice. ‘The Kingdom of Christ is not the 
Church, though the Church is embraced in the Kingdom. 
With Christ the idea of the Kingdom was the dominant 
note. He indicated His meaning in the prayer He taught 
the disciples, “ Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven.” It was His will that it prevail here as it 
prevails in heaven. See Matt. 7:21; 18:14; Mark 3:35. 


38 


| Ege has been considered, up to this point, as 


THE KINGDOM INSTRUMENT 39 


Above all, it was a spiritual kingdom. “ For the kingdom 
of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace 
and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom, 14:17). See Luke 
17:20; Matt. 16:19; 1 Cor. 4:20; John 18:36. When He 
said: “ My kingdom is not of this world,” we are not to take 
the extreme view that it is not for this world. His early 
followers did not understand His meaning. They looked for 
His early return with the armies of heaven. After this 
millennial hope faded, then the view became prevalent that 
He meant to establish in some far distant epoch and in 
another world His kingdom, after this world should have 
been destroyed. This view has profoundly affected and 
delayed the progress of His kingdom on earth, by making 
men ignore and despise the conditions of the world as being 
none of their concern. We call it “ other-world-li-ness.” 
The Church has been singing: 


“ There is a happy land— 
Far, far away,” 
and: 
“Tm a pilgrim, and I’m a stranger” — 


while it has paid little heed to the sob of the masses at its 
door. Surely, there is abundant place in life for other- 
world-li-ness, but this view of life must not obscure the 
needs of the one we live in. 

We find today two extreme views on the Kingdom of 
Christ, in regard to its social message. There are those who 
resolve all the teachings of Jesus into a social gospel. They 
are continually talking about “social regeneration,” “ social 
conscience,” “social will.” To them the Cross and the 
mediatorial Kingdom of Christ mean but little. They forget 
that society has no body or soul, but is made up of an aggre- 
gation of individuals. They lose sight of the worth and 
value of the individual on which rested the Kingdom of 
Christ as He taught it. The elevation of society will be by’ 
the route of the elevation of individuals. 


- 40 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


On the other hand, there is an ultra-conservative view that 
adheres to the “ ministerial and declarative” function of the 
Church, as its exclusive function. They hold that the Church 
has nothing to do with the problems of social injustice, pov- 
erty, prostitution, crime, wages and working conditions of 
employees, except to “preach the Gospel.” One is led to 
inquire, What constitutes the preaching of the Gospel? 
Shall the ethical teachings of Jesus be sidetracked, for the 
exclusive presentation of the doctrines of divine grace, while 
the masses for whom the Gospel is intended are in a ferment 
of unrest over injustices that the applied ethics of Jesus 
would remove? 

These have overlooked the tremendous influence that 
social environment has over the lives of individuals for 
vice or virtue. It is one thing to say that the Church should 
not meddle in politics and another thing to say that the 
Church has no message for politicians. It is one thing to 
say that the Church has no right to run business or tell or- 
ganized business what to do, and another thing to say that 
the Church has no message for the business man whose em- 
ployees by low wages are tempted to prostitution while he 
contributes liberally out of his surplus earnings to charity. | 


“ Religion has to do with man’s relation to God; ethics with 
his relation to his fellow-man. Jesus taught both. His ethics 
were grounded in His religion. The two are inseparable, and 
the follower of Jesus can never consent to their separation. ‘The 
idea of the Kingdom was the dominant note in His teaching. We 
shall seek in vain to comprehend His ethics unless we grasp this 
word and all that it implies. We must first of all see as in imagi- 
nation He saw, this world so reconstituted as to consist of a 
society of renewed men, who have experienced the blessings of a 
new life—a life imparted by God and lived in harmony with God. 
This Kingdom is impossible to the natural man, so to enter it, 
one must be born again from above. From a previous tendency 
to overlook the social teachings of Jesus, the pendulum is now 
swinging to the opposite extreme, to treat His teachings as wholly 
social, and social in the narrow sense of being concerned mainly 
with the material welfare of men living in social relations. It is 


THE KINGDOM INSTRUMENT 41 


the marked feature of the teachings of Jesus that He holds in 
just equipoise the two elemental, equally necessary, ethical truths: 
First, that society cannot be regenerated’ except by the new birth 
of the individual, and, second, that the individual cannot exist 
apart from society and cannot be saved apart from his social 
relations.”—Vedder, Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus. 


If we lose sight of either one of these two great truths, 
we are led into error and practical disaster. The message 
of Jesus loses its reality if we forget His estimate of indi- 
vidual worth as indicated in the three parables of the lost 
son, the lost coin and the lost sheep; on the other hand, it 
loses its significance if we forget the social relationships of 
men as indicated time and again in the Sermon on the 
Mount. Rather than look on religion in a social light, we 
need to look on social questions in a religious light. Be- 
tween the two extreme views indicated above there is a very 
large area of human life left without any organized effort 
and with no message that saves and no solution that solves. 
Jesus was no economist and gave no system of economics; 
nor was He a reformer with a panacea for social reform. 
But He looked upon all of these things from the point of 
view of His Kingdom and of their bearing on the soul and 
its relationship to God. 


“While all of this has been said, however, and it is frankly 
admitted that Jesus was not primarily interested in ‘salvaging 
civilization,’ it remains true that His spiritual teaching has pro- 
found and far-reaching social implications. No hard and fast 
line can be drawn between the sphere of religion and the sphere 
of ethics, politics and economics. Personal faith in Christ must 
find social and brotherly expression, or it is a thing of naught.”— 
Coats, Changing Church and Unchanging Christ. 

“The Church can reform law by reforming lawyers and 
judges, business by reforming business men, society by reform- 
ing social leaders. But she cannot do this if she makes it merely 
incidental to the saving of the souls of lawyers, politicians, busi- 
ness men and social leaders in another world. As long as they 
regard her message merely as a means of escaping punishment 


42 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


of sins committed in these relations the Church will never do 
society any good through such members—even if she should 
finally succeed in keeping them out of hell. She must regard it 
as one of the main purposes of her institution to equip them for 
service here in this world and in just relations; and she must 
deliver her message in such a way that they so understand it. 
Let her preach the Gospel as a rule of justification; but she must 
preach the law as a rule of life, and insist that obedience to it in 
all the relations of life is the only valid evidence of a saving 
faith. The epistle of James must be preached as well as those of 
Paul. Too much ‘other-world-hedonism’ has crept into the 
ethics of our Christian pulpits.”—J. R. Howerton, Church and 
Social Reforms. 


By the Kingdom of Heaven, then, we understand a society 
of believing people in communion (fellowship-partnership ) 
with Christ at work not only to enjoy that fellowship them- 
selves but so to live and do as to bring all others possible 
into the same relationship. This Kingdom looks in the direc- 
tion of here and hereafter; it is both a subjective state and 
an objective society. As a subjective Kingdom it objectifies 
itself in our social relations. 


“It is both present (Matt. 11:12; 12:28; 16:19; Luke 11: 
20; 16:16; 17:21, see also the parables of the Sower, the Tares, 
the Leaven and the Drag Net) and future. It is expanding 
in society, like the grain of mustard seed; working towards the 
pervasion like the leaven of the lump. God is in Christ recon- 
ciling the world to Himself, and the Gospel of Christ is the 
great instrument of that process.”—Vincent, Word Studies. 


If, then, we are prepared to admit that the Gospel of 
Christ has a social message, let us turn to look at the social 
unrest of today and note its underlying cause as well as the 
remedy. That there are “revolts” on in the world, none 
deubt. There is a revolt against government; a revolt 
against law; a revolt against the old norms of intellectual 
life; a revolt against religious faith; a revolt against private 
property as an institution. With the latter we are especially 
concerned here. 


THE KINGDOM INSTRUMENT 43 


Something is wrong with society. No man can honestly 
justify some of the conditions that prevail today in the light 
of the standards of Jesus. Surely society has made very 
great progress in the last few hundred years. Rather we 
should ask what might have been its status today if the 
ethics of Jesus had been applied. Up through one revolu- 
tion after another, society has fought its way for rights. In 
the past the fight has always been between the rights of 
rulers and the rights of the people. Today we are entering, 
in the judgment of many thoughtful people, upon another 
epochal movement. It is now an issue between property 
rights and personal rights; it is now a question of the Divine 
Rights of Wealth. Men have risen from slavery to serfdom 
and from serfdom to wage service, and they are contesting 
today the rights of wealth, which is another way of con- 
trolling the bodies and souls of men. The modern system 
of industry has taken the place of the old order when every 
man owned his tools, took pride in his product and pocketed 
the profits. Millions are today bound to the machines of 
industry. They feel that they are not getting their share 
of the profits of business. Large dividends are paid stock- 
holders while the workers receive less than a decent wage. 

In 1913, the Illinois State Senate became very much dis- 
turbed by vice conditions in Chicago and appointed a com- 
mittee of investigation. On the witness stand the manager 
of one of the large department stores testified that the net 
profits of the business the year before were about twelve 
million dollars. On being asked what wages were paid the 
girls, he said that 119 of them were getting a little less than 
$5 per week and 1,465 a little less than $8 per week. It 
developed that conditions such as these were responsible for 
much of the prostitution of the city. No doubt some of the 
stockholders were men of the Church and gave liberally to 
its causes and to charity, but the working girls were paying 
the bill. 

The labor agitator finds his task easy, with conditions of 
this kind. The unrest of the day is founded not on hair- 


Aide | ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


brained theories of communism but on the perfectly legiti- 
mate demand for an equal opportunity for personal growth 
and development. The demand is not for a distribution of 
wealth so much as it is a demand that wealth be used pri- 
marily to develop personality rather than things. It is esti- 
mated that five out of every six children born today have no 
assured place in our industrial system. Eighty per cent of 
the incomes in the United States today are found to be in- 
adequate to keep those dependent on them in the ordinary 
comforts of life. 


“The inequality of income in the United States is shown in 
‘Income in the United States’ by the National Bureau of Eco- 
nomic Research. Twenty-one million families dividing that avail- 
able income of the country would average $2,330 each. But in 
actual fact 152 persons have an income of over $1,000,000; 369 
persons an income of from $500,000 to $1,000,000; 1,976 from 
$200,000 to $500,000; 4,945 from $100,000 to $200,000; and a total 
of 254,000 of the rich with incomes of $10,000 to over $1,000,000, 
who receive nearly seven billion dollars of the national income. 
Only 842,000, or 3 per cent, receive over $5,000 a year; five mil- 
lions, or 14 per cent, receive over $2,000; twenty-seven millions, 
or 72 per cent, receive less than $1,500, and fourteen million per- 
sons, or 38 per cent, receive less than $1,000 a year.”—-Sherwood 
Eddy, America: Its Problems and Perils. 

“Less than half of the families of the United States are prop- 
ertyless; nevertheless, seven-eights of the families hold but one- 
eighth of the national wealth, while one per cent of the families 
hold more than the remaining ninety-nine per cent.”—Dr. Spahr. 

“The tyrannical use of money has been made possible by the 
conditions of the age. The exploration and colonization of new 
lands, the irrigation of arid deserts, the fertilization of barren 
soils, the discovery of coal and iron and precious metals; the 
invention of machinery for the cultivation of the soil and reaping 
its products, for harnessing of all of nature’s forces for the 
manufacture of the raw product into the finished material; the 
facility and rapidity of transportation—have given an opportunity 
for the accumulation of wealth never dreamed of. While without 
doubt a large proportion of the people have been bettered in the 
general conditions of life by this enormous development of 


THE KINGDOM INSTRUMENT A5 


nature’s resources, yet another large proportion have found their 
condition made worse. The artisan in the old times who worked 
with his own tools was better off than many of those who now 
work with another man’s machine. ... Are there no slaves in 
our own land? Is equal opportunity given to all for the attain- 
ments of the purpose of their being? Are the rights of all people 
respected? Are rank, power, privilege, wealth, intelligence and 
elucation being used for the moral welfare of mankind? Do our 
legislatures fairly represent the interests of all the people without 
respect to persons or classes? Are our laws free from class 
privilege? Are our courts of justice beyond the suspicion of 
favoritism? It is impossible to answer any of these questions in 
an unqualified affirmative.”—J. R. Howerton, Church and Social 
Reforms. 


Concentrated wealth makes easily possible the accumula- 
tion and exploitation of natural resources for the privileged 
few; many of our large corporations are more interested in 
profits than in the personal welfare of their employees; 
millions of workers go to their daily task with a burning 
resentment against a system they feel to be radically wrong. 
This, then, is producing an unrest with which our age will 
have to reckon. At the bottom of it all is found to be a 
wrong theory of property and its rights. In fact, the ques- 
tion of property lies at the tap root of every international, 
inter-racial and industrial problem of this age. The progress 
of the Kingdom has faced new and varying problems in every 
age. The rapid development of the earth’s natural resources 
under the stimulus of scientific invention and discovery is 
creating a stupendous problem for the Kingdom. Property, 
its rights, and its duties, have within the last few decades, 
overshadowed other problems. A few centuries ago when 
the great bulk of mankind lived in what was virtual slavery, 
property was not a paramount issue. We are now living in 
an age when the Church can make little progress until this 
issue is met squarely and settled on Scriptural grounds, 

We are not so blind as to insist that the possession of 
property in itself makes human happiness, or the lack of it 
unhappiness, but only that it has a great moral effect upon 


46 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


its holders for good or evil. The Kingdom of Christ is one 
of human brotherhood, and property is the one great tool 
for building it. The right use of it becomes the only prac- 
tical way of turning a theoretical partnership with Christ 
into a real one. The workers of our industrial system are 
in a large measure estranged from the Church. If the 
Gospel has a social message, if the Kingdom of Christ is 
one to be set up here in our present order and not for 
another world only, then perforce the teaching of Jesus on 
property must be applied. Its accumulation, use and distri- 
bution lie at the heart of our social unrest. While the old 
individualism is held in theory and practise by Christian 
men, the masses will never be reached, and the building of 
the Kingdom will be delayed. The capitalist is busy figur- 
ing out how more money can be made; the sociologist how 
everybody ought to be helped by somebody else; the time has 
come for the voice of religion to be heard through conse- 
crated business men, figuring how and why more money © 
can be made and used for building the Kingdom of our 
Lord and His Christ. 


V 


PROPERIDY “tens? 


“ That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may 
have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with God the Father and 
with his Son Jesus Christ.”,—1 JoHN 1:3 


“The time is ripe, and rotten ripe, for change. 
Then let it come; I have no dread of what 
Is called for by the instincts of mankind, 
Nor think I that the world would fall apart 
Because we tear a parchment or two.” 
—LowELL. 


HE battle-ground between social groups today is in 
the field of economics, The New Testament ideals 


of individual worth fermented as leaven for centu- 
ries, until the Reformation of the sixteenth century gave 
them direction and force. The ideals of democracy are not 
altogether political. They were inspired by religious doc- 
trines. The struggle of democracy has been going on for 
several hundred years. One conquest it has won after an- 
other. Governments have fallen; czars and kaisers have 
disappeared; kings and lords have taken flight. Political 
and social freedom, two of the objectives of democracy, have 
been attained. There remains one more, economic freedom. 
At this point is centered today the struggle for which this 
age will become known. 


“The Great War itself in its last stages was a conflict of social 
philosophies—but beyond this the causes of social explosion lay 
in the great inequalities and injustices of centuries flogged beyond 
endurance by the conflict, and freed from restraint by the destruc- 
tion of war.’—Herbert Hoover, American Individualism. 


Out of this welter of conflicts have come, with fresh and | 
appealing power, some of the old formulas, as well as new 


7 


48 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


ones, for remedying the ills of which society complains. 
Among them all is one element in common, property, its 
rights and duties. In fact, property may be said to be the 
keyword of this age. 

Nor can the Church, or the Christian business men of the 
Church, stand aside with composure, and seek to establish 
an “alibi,” on the ground that this is not a religious issue. 
Though the issue emerges from an economic soil, it has a 
powerful and profound effect in the fruitage of moral and 
religious life. And, more than all, while the social groups 
claw and fight, the Church has the one remedy in the appli- 
cation of the ethical teachings of her Lord. Fundamentally 
speaking, property is a human necessity for realizing life 
and its God-given powers. Every man in the world has a 
right to it. To be denied it by any system or combination of 
forces is to take from life its inalienable right. It will not 
answer to say that a great part of the pauperism and pov- 
erty of the world is due to laziness, inefficiency, extrava- 
gance and other vices. This is true. But the fact remains 
that there are literally millions today born into a social order 
who have never had a fair chance to develop efficiency, grow 
adequate bodies, or reach maturity unstunted. Industrialism, 
in its greed for profits, has warped and twisted and handi- 
capped a large part of the underprivileged of the world 
today. The following is taken from an Associated Press 
- report in January, 1926, from Scranton, Pa.: | 


“Scranton—Jan. 15 (A.P.). Arraigned before Judge George 
W. Maxey in juvenile court today, charged with stealing a bag 
of coal to keep his mother and little brothers warm, Harry Ma- 
linski, 15 years old, was not sent to jail. ‘Instead of sending 
you to jail, young man, I’m going to send you home, and soon 
after you get there, coal enough to keep the family warm will. 
arrive, said Judge Maxey.” 


Something is wrong when it is necessary for a child to 
steal coal in a great coal producing country to keep his 
family warm. 


PROPERTY “ISMS” 49 


And so all over the world men are retesting old ideas 
about property. They are asking, as never before, what part 
society has in the accumulation of property and its value. 
Are the immense fortunes that are piled up to be passed on 
from father to son justified? May not society claim as its 
part a larger share, and take it, if need be? Does money- 
getting fulfil its moral purpose; ought the rich to be abol- 
ished? These and a thousand other questions have put 
property before the bar today. And it must answer. The 
voice of the common man is heard with more effect nowa- 
days than ever before. He is thinking of his rights, taught 
him in the primer of democracy. The crowning achieve- 
ment of this age is not scientific invention or discovery or 
material development, great as these are, but this: The 
achievement of the rights of the common man. Contrast 
the status of the common man I00 years ago with his status 
today. And he is centering his thought on the institution of 
private property. 

As an institution let us examine it critically and note the 
drift of thought in regard to it. “Our system of civiliza- 
tion is built up very largely on the institution of private 
property or exclusive ownership,” writes Connyngton in a 
recent volume on Wills, Estates, Trusts." Blackstone de- 
scribed property as “that sole and despotic dominion which 
one man claims and exercises over the external things of 
the world in total exclusion of every other individual.” 
This is rather strong language! ‘There are about nine the- 
ories of property, ranging from the extreme individualism 
indicated by Blackstone, and written into the philosophy of 
Adam Smith and John Locke, to the extreme communism of 
Europe. We need not consider all of these. 

First, look at individualism. The individualism of the 


1 By permission of Ronald Press. 

3“ Individualism ”: ‘‘ The social theory which advocates the free 
and independent action of the individual, as opposed to communistic 
methods of organization and state, interference. Opposed to col- 
lectivism and socialism” (Oxford Dictionary). ‘‘ The essential fea- 
tures of individualism are private property in capital, to which are 


50 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


eighteenth century was the propelling cause of all the Brit- 
ish migrations; the British Revolutions, secession of the 
South, the trek of the Boers from Cape Colony. It was 
“the cornerstone of the American Bill of Rights and the 
American Constitution.” It inspired the French Revolution. 
Napoleon’s rise was due to the support of the small property 
holders, who needed the protection of a strong hand against 
threatening anarchy. He later failed because he incurred 
the displeasure of the merchant and banking class of France. 
The “laissez-faire” (let us alone) idea was deeply rooted 
by the American Revolution, and later strengthened by the 
demands of the frontiersman, who alone had cleared and set- 
tled his land. Particularly did it root itself in the old South 
of the slave owner and the large plantation. He was a lord 
of all he surveyed. Until recently the South, removed from 
manufacturing interests demanding cooperative effort, has 
been affected largely by the small farmer type, where a man 
is first of all a great individualist. Unconsciously perhaps, 
the Southern people cling with firmer grip than those of 
other sections to the old idea that what is theirs is theirs. 
Partly for this reason the many economic isms of the 
European immigrant have found little sympathy in the 
South. i 

The old individualism flowered a generation ago in the 
ruthless, domineering capitalist of whom Jay Gould was a 
type. Its philosophy was that of Robin Hood: 


“ Because the good old rule 
Sufficeth them—the simple plan 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can.” 


Its methods brought on our anti-trust legislation and gov- 
ernmental regulation of trade and industry. The unbridled 





added almost of necessity the right of bequest and inheritance, thus 
permitting unlimited transfer and accumulation; competition; a 
rivalry between individuals in the acquisition of wealth; a struggle 
for existence in which the fittest survive”? (Webster). 


PROPERTY “ISMS” 51 


individualism of the past has led to our present disorders and 
revolts. Pauperism, prostitution and crime have attended it 
in its best developed state. It may with safety be said that 
the present movement of socialism would never have made 
headway but for the wrongs produced by individualism. Its 
day is done. No far-sighted business man of this country 
will today adhere to it as his theory of private property. 

As for socialism, volumes could be written on its various 
shades of meaning. Few socialists agree on what it is. As 
a philosophy and program of economics it began about 1848 
in Europe. It includes a rather wide diversity of minds, 
from Karl Marx to our American parlor type. It aims to 
abolish not private property but private capital; that is, the 
tools of production, raw materials, machinery, land, money. 
Clews, an exponent, defines it as follows: “It opposes and 
denounces competition as an injurious and unnecessary force 
in society and advocates the collective ownership through the 
state of all the means of production and distribution.” Ved- 
der, in his Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus, says: “ Social- 
ism might be more scientifically named collectivism. The 
key to all its theories and parties is cooperative production 
and equitable distribution. It is the opposite system, on the 
one hand, to individualism and, on the other, to competition. 
It is but carrying one stage further a process of social re- 
organization that has been transforming the world ever since 
the decay of the feudal system.” It may be regarded more 
as a protest against inequalities and injustices than a theory 
of property. It preaches human brotherhood and fraternity 
but has no way of making men unselfish and lovable. Cling- 
ing to the theory of private ownership of property as 
opposed to Divine ownership on which Scripture speaks 
repeatedly, it proclaims at the same time a spirit of broth- 
erhood. The two are incompatible. Property is an in- 
strument, owned by God, and no beautiful dream of the 
brotherhood of man will ever become effective that begins 
by affirming its private ownership. However, let us be fair 
to socialism and give it credit at least for waving the danger 


52 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


signal. If one is headed in his automobile towards a wash- 
out in the highway that imperils life, and some man stops 
him with a red flag, he does not linger to ask if the man is 
knave, fool or wise man, but only to thank him for the 
service. Dr. P. S. Grant says: “Much of what we call 
socialism is only democracy getting its second wind.” When 
Gladstone was asked about socialism he replied: “Do you 
propose to buy the land, or take it? If the first, it is folly; 
if the second, it is theft.” For lack of space we must dis- 
miss socialism from further consideration here and look at 
another more common and popular form of it. 
Collectivism * deserves very careful thought. There is a 
very decided drift towards it as the theory of property in 
this country. Every public park, playground, hospital and 
municipal plant is an evidence of the growth toward col- 
lectivism. While it does not seek to limit private property, 
it undertakes to answer the call for human brotherhood by 
shifting the burden to the City, or State, or Government. 
Let society do it by owning the means of production, trans- 
portation and distribution, thus eliminating competition and 
self-interest. “It proposes to vest in the state both land 
and capital, the private ownership of which sets man against 
man, and to vest it under conditions which will put men 
shoulder to shoulder in coOperative production.” So writes 
Edmond Kelly in Government or Human Evolution. Again 
he says: “The essential feature of collectivism is that it 
prevents any man from making himself the master of the 
sources of production so as to use this mastery for the 
exploitation of other men.” It will be the government of 
the ant-hill! Let no one think this is an unpopular theory. 
The business men of this country will ultimately have to 
choose between this theory and the teaching of Christ, if 


®* Collectivism ”: ‘‘ The socialistic theory of the collective owner- 
ship or control of all the means of production and especially of the 
land by the whole community or state; i. e., the people collectively 
for the benefit of the people as a whole” (Oxford Dict.). “It ex- 
presses the economic basis of socialism” (Enc. Brit.). “ Practically 
equal to socialism ” (Webster). 


PROPERTY “ISMS ” 53 


the present drift continues. Hear Dr. C. W. Elliott in his 
little volume on Individualism and Collectivism: 


“The nineteenth century witnessed a conflict between two 
tendencies opposite in human society—individualism and _ col- 
lectivism. Till about 1870 individualism held the advantage, but 
near the middle of the century collectivism began to gain over 
individualism, and towards the last third of the century col- 
lectivism won decided advantages over the opposing principle.” 


Collectivism no longer trusts individualism to get results. 
On the other hand, it says that the pecuniary interest is too 
large and has failed to open a man’s mind, stimulate and 
rouse him to human need. Witness child labor laws, em- 
ployers’ liability legislation, workmen’s compensation, regu- 
lation of rates and wages on public utilities, compulsory 
education, national control over parks, public ownership of 
hospitals, schools; the paternalistic attitude of the national 
Government; the tendency in all directions for “ society ” to 
own and manage. Let it be said, in all fairness, that many 
good things have been accomplished by wresting control 
from the hands of individuals. But let it also be noted that 
the enormous growth of social mass movements has thrown 
into the discard the individual as an ideal; and, moreover, 
that every step in this direction is placing limits on private 
property as an institution. The individual citizen is much 
less free in the use of his property than he was fifty years 
ago. No longer can a man run his business as he wants to, 
whether he be small merchant, farmer, manufacturer or rail- 
road president. In other words, “society” no longer admits 
that there is anything sacred about private property. A 
man can keep only that portion that “society ” permits him 
to keep. It can tax it out of him, vote it away, and control 
what is left. 

The most serious objection to collectivism is that it loses 
sight of the fact that an individual may have a conscience 
but that a group does not. The Golden Rule cannot work 
with a group; one group may dig out the vitals of another 


54 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


group, or forget the needs of the others. What will become 
of the other “ communities ” when a given community spends 
all of its energy on perfecting its relationships; what will 
become of the out of the way communities of the earth in 
India, China, Japan and Armenia not so well favored? In 
short, collectivism will kill the missionary motive. 

But its growth has brought us to a new interpretation of 
property and its rights. Innumerable decisions of our courts 
and the writings of the greatest authorities in this country 
all tend in the direction of breaking down the old doctrine 
of the sacredness of private property, and of setting up in 
its place the doctrine that society has a just claim to a part 
of what men have in the past called their own. Every man 
should read a little volume on Property and Society by Judge 
A. A. Bruce of the Supreme Court of North Dakota. He 
does not advocate collectivism, but indicates the change of 
society in its attitude towards property. Among other 
things, he has this to say: 


“So, too, the premise must be conceded (and this is a premise 
far reaching and revolutionary in its logical results) that no man, 
no master, no owner of property, has a natural or constitutional 
right to manage his business or his property as he pleases; that 
where human life and health and the welfare of human society as 
a whole—in which the individual, however humble, is an impor- 
tant element—are concerned, the factory and the workshop and 
the store and the mine are not castles, nor sacred, whether the 
home be or not; and that all business in which lives are risked or 
morals affected, or social happiness and prosperity are at stake, 
or the welfare of the State as a whole is involved, are to that 
extent affected with a public interest and are fit subjects for 
governmental regulation, inspection and control. 

“This, no doubt, is a new theory of government for the indi- 
vidualistic Englishman of the laissez-faire school. It is a theory 
which is still more difficult of adoption by the individualistic and 
commercial American, but it is none the less implanted in the 
traditions of the race. It is the theory that the duty of the citizen 
does not merely involve the duty to support the state, to keep 
the King’s peace, and to refrain from acts which, under the rude 


PROPERTY “ISMS” 55 


code of the past, were deemed to involve moral turpitude; but in 
a large measure to be a gentleman, and to care for, and protect 
and diligently guard the health and welfare of others—of em- 
ployees, of visitors, of customers, and of the public at large. It 
is a step in the direction of making the moral code of the New 
Testament the basis of the criminal law and of the law of the 
land.” 


Arthur Jerome Eddy, one of the most brilliant men of 
the New York bar, who died in recent years, left the manu- 
script of a book which has since been issued, on Property. 
He has this to say: 


“Tt is no time for dilly-dallying. If the people cannot be con- 
vinced that the rich man is at least as important and valuable a 
factor in the development as the poor man then he will have to 
go. It is not a question whether he as an individual has a right 
to his wealth; the sole question is whether it is a good thing for 
the community to permit him to exercise that right; whether the 
results in the long run are better than if the community took 
over in some way part or all of his rights.” 


We have therefore come to this: Individualism has gone; 
collectivism is the dominant trend today. Neither is right 
nor scriptural. We need a new and yet an old doctrine of 
property; a set of abiding principles that will answer the cry 
of unrest today, and bring to the alienated masses the saving 
message of the Gospel of our Lord. 


VI 


CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM 


“I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; both to the wise and 
to the unwise.”’—-Rom. 1:14. 


ab inten “Tt takes a soul. 

To move a body; it takes a high-souled man 

To move the masses even to a cleaner stye; 

It takes the ideal, to blow a hair’s breadth off 

The dust of the actual. Ah, your Fourriers failed 

Because not poets enough to understand 

That life develops from within.” 
—ELizaBEtH B. Browninc, “ Aurora Leigh.” 


ROUDHON, the French Anarchist, in 1840, said of 
P private property that it is “theft.” Bentham, the 

Englishman, describes it as “the noblest triumph of 
humanity over itself.” Both cannot be right. They repre- 
sent the two poles of thought. Back and forth over the issue 
of private property, systems of philosophy, social, moral and 
religious, have fought for many centuries. Like the compass 
needle, the prevailing thought has shifted first from one 
point to another. But there are many indications that it is 
settling today towards the teaching of the Galilean. We 
are witnessing every day indications that the Christian busi- 
ness men of the world are turning neither to the old individ- 
ualism of the eighteenth century nor to the socialization of 
wealth as taught by collectivism. 

Unquestionably the sanest thought of our day affirms two 
essential principles of private property which one school or 
the other has forgotten in the past. These are, first, that 
individual initiative and responsibility must not be scrapped 
by any theory of private property; second, that all private 
property has an element of social value in it. The trouble 
with individualism is that it does not acknowledge the latter; 


56 


CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM 57 


with the other “isms,” that they do not acknowledge the 
former. The enormous growth of our social movements, in 
recent years, aiming towards the socialization of wealth and 
the protection of the weak, is effectively destroying the very 
thing they are proposing to save; namely, the sense of indi- 
vidual worth. Self-reliance, independence, initiative and the 
spirit of hustle of the average American will ultimately have 
its moral fibre destroyed if we go to the extreme in our social 
movements. On the other hand, society has a rightful claim 
to a large share of accumulated wealth. Nothing is fully 
produced until it is in the possession of the consumer at 
the point of consumption. The coal operator has not pro- 
duced coal by simply getting it out of the mine. The trans- 
portation system and the distributing system at the other 
end have a part in the creation of his wealth. In the ulti- 
mate value of cotton cloth, the man who planted it, the one 
who picked it, the one who ginned it, the one who carried it 
to the mill, the one at the loom, the man who owns the mill, 
and many others, have a share. No sane man who has an 
accumulation of wealth today can look upon it and say of it: 
“T alone did this—it is mine.” Take out of accumulated 
wealth the share that society contributes, and there is but 
little left. 

What we need now is the formulation of a program as to 
private property that will preserve and conserve the two 
fundamental principles generally recognized today by ll 
thoughtful men. Mr. Herbert Hoover has written a little 
book, American Individualism, incidentally coining a new 
phrase. This book might well be in the library of every 
business man. He is 100 years ahead of the old individual- 
ism of Europe. He is, of course, writing largely from the 
viewpoint of the economist; describing American Individual- 
ism, he says: 


“Tf we would have the values of individualism, their stimula- 
tion to initiative, to the development of hand and intellect, to the 
high development of thought and spirituality, they must be tem- 


58 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


pered with that firm and fixed ideal of American individualism— 
an equality of opportunity. Our individualism differs from all 
others because it embraces these great ideals: that while we build 
our society upon the attainment of the individual, we shall safe- 
guard to every individual an equality of opportunity to take that 
position in the community to which his intelligence, character, 
ability and ambition entitle him; that we keep the social solution 
free from frozen strata of classes; that we shall stimulate effort 
of each individual to achievement; that through an enlarging 
sense of responsibility and understanding we shall assist him to 
this attainment; while he in turn must stand up to the emery 
wheel of competition.” 


Let us go one step further and venture to coin a new 
phrase of our own, Christian Individualism, and offer it as 
the solution of the problem of private property. First of 
all, because we intend it to convey the idea of the funda- 
mental teachings of Jesus on property and its relation to 
society. Second, because it preserves the two fundamental 
principles already mentioned. By it we mean the develop- 
ment of the individual, on the one hand, and the recognition 
of the needs of human brotherhood, on the other hand. The 
teachings of Jesus will be found to occupy this middle 
ground between the old individualism and the new collectiv- 
ism of the present day. Christian Individualism will hold 
to personal incentive in the accumulation and distribution of 
wealth and at the same time assure society of its utmost 
value. Wealth in the hands of men motivated by Jesus 
Christ will mean far more to society than that distributed 
by some of the social schemes that are advanced. Frankly, 
this imposes upon men who have the ability to accumulate 
wealth a tremendous task, difficult of achievement and sub- 
ject to the temptations that surround wealth. But the Chris- 
tian life is not easy in any sense. There is no need to avoid 
the one and only solution offered because it is difficult to 
apply. Men have been groping for 2,000 years for a solu- 
tion of the problem of private property, and they look in 
every direction save that of the Sermon on the Mount. In 


CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM 59 


preparing the matter for this book, every available book was 
reviewed in the Congressional Library of our Government; 
more than seventy-five volumes were examined; the ex- 
ponents of every theory were carefully read. And the amaz- 
ing discovery about it all was that only a very few indicated 
the teaching of Jesus as a solution. All of this is but an- 
other illustration of the fact that, though Christianity has 
been taught for these centuries, never has it actually been 
tried in all of our relationships. Yet there is no relation- 
ship of life today that needs more the application of the 
teachings of Jesus than this one of the relation of things 
to life. 

Reformers deal with institutions; Jesus dealt with men. 
He sought a better society) but through redeemed and re- 
generated individuals. He does not say that wealth is good 
or bad, but that it becomes either good or bad as it is used. 
He did not advise against or for any theory of accumulation 
or distribution, but He looked upon it in a more funda- 
mental way; that is, He taught that wealth was secondary to 
personality and must be used for the Kingdom, which was 
His constant thought (Luke 16:9). He had friends among 
the wealthy; namely, Simon, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arima- 
thea and others; He also counted the very poor among His 
closest friends. With Him, wealth was a trust, committed to 
one for use (Luke 16:11). All of His parables dealing 
with money go straight to this fundamental conception. 
Nowhere did He advise as to the distribution of capital, but 
He did have something to say about “hoarded wealth,” of 
which there was much in His day, the Rich Young Ruler 
being an example (Mark 10:17-22). One’s capital used for 
the Kingdom, is one thing; hoarded wealth, another thing. 
In His description of the last judgment (Matt. 24: 31-46) 
He plainly indicated that the test would be on the use or 
non-use of things for Him and His Kingdom: “ Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me.” His 
teaching on the Kingdom struck at the very heart of privi- 
lege in all its forms. There was no privilege of birth, none 


60 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


of wealth or social position, but all were brothers, with equal 
rights and duties. And into full partnership with Him in 
His Kingdom He invited every one who would come. When 
one looks upon property in the light of partnership with 
Him, accumulating, administering, participating and rejoic- 
ing in the rewards, it all becomes a simple program. 


“The root of the trouble is that men misconceive the value and 
use of wealth and their proper relation to it. When once men 
come to perceive that wealth is not owned by man at all; that 
there is none of it which he has the right to do with as he pleases; 
that it belongs to God and must be used in God’s service; when 
once this conception is accepted in good faith it will be compara- 
tively easy to determine as to the best policy of administering it. 
The scheme of Jesus is really the only practicable one; and if 
orthodox Christians, scientific sociologists, the ethical idealists, 
the socialists, and all others of whatever persuasion or name, who 
wish to see justice prevail among men, would with complete devo- 
tion join hands in promoting the Gospel of the Kingdom, the 
approximate realization of the glorious ideal would be brought so 
near that children now in their mothers’ arms would live to see 
the most profound and beneficent change in social life that has 
taken place in the whole history of mankind.”—Gardner, Ethics 
of Jesus and Social Progress. 

“ Social responsibility or stewardship is expressed in the acqui- 
sition and use of property. Again we meet the law of fellowship 
expressed in terms of reasonable service. Christianity brings no: 
indictment of property as a modern institution, based merely on 
an ethical judgment of the title to wealth. Where property is an 
expression of life and a promoter of fellowship, as a comfortable 
home certainly is, Christian teaching cannot be cited against it. 
But where property separates and isolates it is a denial of fellow- 
ship. Money ‘taint’ is derived from the fact that it is the price 
of men’s antagonisms rather than the product of their good will. 
One can be an exploiter on a very small bank account; and one 
may hold a million in trust and make it contribute to fellowship 
rather than deny it. But trusteeship requires prodigous charac- 
ter.”—F. Ernest Johnson, Social Gospel and Personal Religion. 


In an address before the New York Bar Association, in 


CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM 61 


1895, Judge John F. Dillon, speaking on “ Property, Its 
Rights and Duties,” said: 


“Tf I were required to sum up in one sentence the lesson which 
existing conditions ought to teach us, it would be the Christian 
lesson that we must increase and deepen and quicken the sense of 
the responsibility of society for the welfare of its members. In 
. no other way can the envy and even the hostility of the poor 
towards the rich be so successfully repressed. A public sentiment 
is rapidly forming which views as a reproach a very rich man who 
lives or living dies without connecting himself and his name and 
memory by substantial benefactions, with works educational, 
philanthropic or charitable for the benefit and welfare of his 
fellow men. I say it with emphasis that wealth has some very 
important lessons to learn and to put into practice. Our very 
rich men have learned how to gain wealth. They must now learn 
the more difficult lesson how to use it. Man lives not by bread 
alone.” 


But will society receive the utmost of value under Chris- 
tian Individualism? There are many who will-challenge this 
claim. Certainly the socialistic reformers will do so. How- 
ever, there are certain inescapable facts of everyday experi- 
ence that cannot be overlooked. The politician loves to 
assure the crowd that men are born free and equal, but we 
know that in fact they are not. Two men were walking 
down the street one day, talking about the spirit of democ- 
racy in this country, by which the humblest might rise to 
the greatest position our Nation can give a man. A street 
cleaner was sweeping close by, and one of the two men 
said: “See that boy! Why, he might become President of 
this country!” “ Never in the world,” said the other, “do 
you see him sweeping the dust against the wind?” 

It is an unpopular thing to say, but it needs to be said, 
that the masses are not capable of self-direction. They need 
leadership in every relationship of life, and the world will 
never be able to dispense with leadership. An amazing reve- 
lation came to us during the Great War, through the mental 


62 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


tests made of the young men entering service under the 
“selective draft” system. They represented a fair cross- 
section of American life. The following is taken from Pro- 
fessor Conklin’s book, The Direction of Human Evolution, 
pp. IOI-103: 

“The mental tests used in our army revealed a surprising 
amount of illiteracy, and what is much worse, an alarmingly low 
level of average intelligence. These tests were devised to measure 
intellectual capacity or inherited ability rather than acquired in- 
formation or education; and for the first time they gave us a 
means of estimating the approximate number of persons in this 
country of low, mean, or high intelligence. The tests were of 
two sorts, the Alpha test for those who could read and write, and 
the Beta test for all others. These tests were taken by about one 
million seven hundred thousand drafted men, who may be as- 
sumed to have been somewhat above the average intelligence of 
the entire population, since none who were evidently feeble- 
minded were drafted. Seven grades were recognized, ranging 
from A to D, these grades being designated as follows: A, very 
superior; B, superior; C plus, high average; C, average; C minus, 
low average; D, inferior; D minus, very inferior. The ‘mental 
ages’ of these different grades and the relative numbers in each 
are shown in the following table: 


Grade Mental Age Percent of Whole 
A 18-19 414 

B 16-17 9 

C plus 15 16%4 

& 13-14 hoo 

C minus 12 20 

D 11 15 

D minus 10 10 


Assuming that these drafted men are a fair sample of the entire 
population of approximately 100 millions, this means that 45 mil- 
lions, or nearly one-half of the whole population, will never 
develop mental capacity beyond the stage represented by a normal 
twelve-year-old child, and that only 1344 millions will ever show 
superior intelligence. 


CHRISTIAN INDIVIDUALISM 63 


“When it is remembered that mental capacity is inherited, that 
parents of low intelligence generally produce children of low 
intelligence and that on the average they have more children than 
persons of high intelligence, and furthermore, when we consider 
that the intellectual capacity, or ‘mental age’ can be changed 
very little by education, we are in a position to appreciate the 
very serious condition which confronts us as a nation,” 


The great mass of the people must follow, while a few 
lead. But the mass will follow ultimately only where worth 
and the spirit of service are indicated. This does not mean 
that the mass, or “society,” should be denied its rightful 
share of property, and the product of its labor. But it does 
mean that a high-souled man, motivated by the Spirit of 
Christ, acting as their employer can help them more in the 
accumulation and expenditure of money for their highest 
good than they could if turned loose with the fortune of 
their employer divided among them. Now, this is what we 
mean by Christian Individualism. And it imposes on a man 
a still greater responsibility than that of simply accumulat- 
ing and distributing wealth—that of thinking for the crowd, 
thinking for them as our Lord would do, if before them in 
Person. While the Silent Partner is withdrawn from view, 
His business partner acts for Him. Who will say that being 
a partner of Christ is an easy job? 

Speaking of leadership and the mass, it is a fact worthy 
of mention that the collective spirit that has dominated Ger- 
many for many generations has produced no great men of 
the first rank. There are no successors to Goethe, Kant and 
Schiller. Germany has failed in all her colonies, while 
England under the spirit of individualism has made a suc- 
cess of hers. It is true that Germany has reduced pauper- 
ism, prostitution and crime, the three great evils of society, 
while England has not done so. But, at the same time, 
England has discovered that her old individualism is anti- 
quated, and that its rank growth is almost in itself a crime. 
The moral is, however, that neither will answer the need of 
the day. Collectivism does not produce the leadership; in- 


64 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


dividualism does not take care of the weak. For society to 
bear all the burden would make a race of “ goose-steppers.” 
To bear none of it would make a race of criminals. We do 
need a spirit infused into the relationships of men that will 
help the unfit to survive and stimulate the fit to struggle. 
The need for struggle should never be removed as a factor 
in the development of life. What we need is a spirit that 
will help men to help themselves, not some of the maudlin 
sentimentality so manifest today. 

This calls for men of great soul and faith. The world 
has no greater need than this, a host of Christian business 
men banded together, in the spirit of Christ, in making 
money with and for Him; men who can look on the multi- 
tudes as sheep having no shepherd; men who can accumulate 
wealth and use it for Kingdom purposes; men who can in- 
terpret property in terms of personality. This is Christian 
Individualism. And the world is waiting for it. Who shall 
say it is impractical? There are thousands of business men 
today giving the lie to such a claim. Some of these are 
‘Nash of Ohio, Hyde of Kansas, Fraser of Pennsylvania, Sir 
Henry Lunn and Rowntree of England, the late John J. 
Eagan of Georgia, of whom more later. If the ethics of 
Jesus are impractical, then we have come to the end of our 
row, for the forces of democracy are making their last great 
fight. It is Christ or chaos. And the business men of the 
Church have it in their power to test at its best testing place 
the religion of our Lord. It is Christian Individualism the 
world needs; or in other words, partnership with a Living 
Christ. 


VII 


THE FIELD OF PARTNERSHIP 


“ For we are laborers together with God.’’—1 Cor. 8:9. 


“T cannot do it alone—the waves run fast and high, 
And the fogs close chill around; the light goes out in the sky. 
But I know that we two shall win in the end—Jesus and I. 


“ Coward and wayward and weak, I change with the changing sky; 
Today so safe and brave, tomorrow too weak to try— 
But He ne’er gives in; so we two shall win—Jesus and I.” 
—From the fly leaf of Dan Crawford’s Testament. 


UR study thus far has brought us to this: Full fel- 
() lowship with Christ is impossible unless we include 

the lower levels of life in the field of property; 
property is the one great instrument for Kingdom building; 
its use in the spirit of Christ is the only solution to the unrest 
of the world. We are now prepared to consider more in 
detail the specific field of operation in a partnership with 
Him. 

It is a creative partnership. We must use the term, how- 
ever, in a limited sense. Nothing is absolutely created save 
by God. Science teaches that the supply of matter on earth 
is exactly the sum total of what it was ages ago. Even the 
farmer who produces a bushel of wheat has brought nothing 
into existence that was not previously in the soil and in the 
air; but he has become a partner with God in assisting the 
forces of nature, in changing their form and in adding new 
values to life. 

A ton of coal in the mine is worth nothing to the man in 
the city whose home needs it, until the miner, the railroad 
brakeman, and the drayman in the city have added their con- 
tribution to its value by placing it in the man’s coal bin. 


65 


66 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP > 


Our chemists and engineers have found out how to get more 
steel out of a ton of iron ore, more products out of crude 
oil, more crops off an acre.of soil and to make a ton of coal 
yield more power. A few years ago cotton seed were con- 
sidered worthless. The writer remembers how they were 
piled up at his father’s gin, in the way, for any one to take 
who would. Then the chemists discovered the oil of the 
cotton seed and helped to develop uses for the oil, until 
today we have in what was once a worthless waste one of 
the nation’s great industries. The capitalist, the engineer 
and the day laborer who throw a dam across one of our 
mountain rivers and convert the raindrops into electrical 
energy are creating new values and transforming material 
forces into something higher. The merchant creates new 
value by distributing things; the banker, by creating and sus- 
taining the reservoir of capital for human enterprise; the 
lawyer, by the interpretation and application of our laws to 
further industry and capital in its legitimate growth; the 
teacher, by imparting information and inspiration to growing 
minds; the doctor, by conserving and directing human vital- 
ity; the bricklayer, by building a home or place of business 
out of common clay; all of these, and all others who by 
energy and skill add something of value to the things they 
handle, are in creative partnership with God. | 

The trouble is that too many of them do not recognize 
and acknowledge the partnership. The man who by good 
fortune finds an oil well comes to think of the oil as his; 
the coal operator comes to think of the coal as his; the 
wage-earner comes to think of the wage as his. What a 
wonderful dignity it would give to all forms of labor if men 
would come to think of themselves as partners with God in 
the handling of things! It would take the drudgery out of 
the common task and hallow every job with the sacredness 
of the divine Presence. A man once asked a shop girl what 
she did. She replied: “Oh, I measure cloth for a living, 
but I am a partner with Christ.” | 

Henry Drummond, many years ago, in his book, Natural 


THE FIELD OF PARTNERSHIP 67 


Law in the Spiritual World, called attention to the relation- 
ship of the various natural kingdoms of the world, showing 
how the vegetable life stoops down and lifts the mineral 
life, how the animal stoops down and lifts the vegetable 
through food process to its level, and how man stoops down 
by the same process and lifts the animal. May we not take 
the thought one step further? 

The last and final “lift” comes when man transforms 
material into spiritual value. Let us call it “Life’s Lifts.” 
Here comes along a man who by his foresight and industry 
converts the waterfall into hydro-electric power, and this 
into cotton cloth, and this into dividends, and this at last, 
by giving millions of dollars to educational institutions, hos- 
pitals, orphanages and mission stations, into spiritual values. 
Lifting things into human personality through partnership 
with Christ is one of life’s holiest tasks—if men would but 
come to see it. 

It is an accumulating partnership. Jesus had no quarrel 
with the accumulation of wealth. He condemned men who 
trusted in wealth, not wealth itself (Mark 10:24). The 
proper acquiring of wealth is like building a reservoir for 
power or water supply; like the improvement of a tool for 
more work. A man who is obliged to use all his earnings 
for the bare necessities of life has no working capital for 
other uses. The injunction of our Lord, “Lay not up for 
yourselves treasures upon the earth” (Matt. 6: 19-21), is 
too often quoted as meaning an indictment against the in- 
crease of wealth. This is not correct. This injunction of 
His must be interpreted in the light of the parables of the 
pounds and the talents. There He commended the increase, 
and condemned the one who “laid up” his capital in a 
napkin, He refers to the policy of hoarding wealth, common 
then and now, which sets apart from all Kingdom use one’s 
capital. Wealth increased and used in partnership with Him 
has His unqualified endorsement. 

As to the standards of acquiring, Christ has much to say. 
Zaccheus, under the tutelage of Jesus, restored his ill-gotten 


68 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


gain. ‘The Pharisees were severely denounced for robbing 
widows while they were at the same time scrupulous tithers. 
A partner with Christ must be careful to accumulate by 
methods that He would approve. The stockholders of the 
department store referred to in Chapter IV accumulated 
large profits while some of their girl employees went down 
under the strain of low wages. The man who builds up his 
capital account by forcing those who work for him, whether 
they be Negro tenants, cotton mill girls, iron puddlers or 
what-not, to live under conditions that militate against the 
normal development of life and its powers, may well know 
that he is not accumulating by the standards laid down by 
his Silent Partner. Christ wants no such capital used for 
His Kingdom work. On the other hand, every man ought 
by every legitimate method to increase his capital. Why 
not? It gives the Silent Partner a larger and better instru- 
ment for Kingdom work. 

It is an administering partnership—not of one-tenth but 
ten-tenths. Many a man who is tithing is patting himself on 
the back in congratulation that he is doing his whole duty. 
Jesus looked at all that a man had. It is not a question of 
how much a man may make, but of how much he is entitled 
to keep. It does not meet the tests of the Silent Partner for 
a man to accumulate money all his life, give little thought 
to its administration for Kingdom purposes, and then leave 
a will disposing of his estate to the Church. Some one has 
said that some men have to die, for God to get anything 
out of them. The problem of proper administration calls for 
much thought and prayer. It is not easy. A man’s first 
duty comes to his immediate family, of course. But how 
about the extravagant tastes and standards of living beyond 
all need of or good for the family? The average American 
well-to-do family wastes enough to keep the average Euro- 
pean family going. ‘lie problem for every man, who takes 
seriously his partnership with Christ, is to consider all of 
his capital and income as subject to the approval or veto 
of his Silent Partner. 


THE FIELD OF PARTNERSHIP 69 


It should be said that, in administering, one ought not to 
dissipate his capital by a reckless division of it. Little good 
would result, for example, if a very wealthy man were to 
dispossess himself of all his capital simply because there is 
human need. Jesus displayed common sense in dealing with 
the problems of wealth. Accumulated capital is His instru- 
ment for joint administration with the Partner. The story 
is told that, one day a man rushed up to Rothschild and 
exclaimed angrily: 


“*You have a million pounds.’ 

“* Well?’ 

“* You have no right to so much money.’ 

“*Who should have it?’ 

““The people.’ 

“*Of England or the world?’ 

“*Of—of the world,’ the man faltered. 

“* All right, take your share out of this and distribute the bal- 
ance where it belongs,’ and the banker handed the man a penny.” 


At no point in a man’s life does he need the direction of 
the Holy Spirit more than in this problem of the proper 
administration of property. 

It is a participating partnership. That is, the Silent Part- 
ner claims a portion of the profits as an acknowledgment of 
His partnership. The constant refrain of the Old Testa- 
ment is: “ The tithe is holy unto the Lord.” Antedating the 
Mosaic Law, the servants of God tithed. God has always 
claimed a definite proportion of income. Now, let us not 
make the mistake of looking at this from the legalistic point 
of view. That raises an argument every time. But a plain, 
common sense view of the tithe from the standpoint of part- 
nership with Him will lead any thinking man into the con- 
viction that he is robbing his Partner by any method of his 
own. The need for the tithe roots itself in the human heart, 
not in the need primarily of the Kingdom of God. Men 
need it to keep God ever present in the daily administration 
of human affairs. The tithe goes far back into the secret 


70 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


recesses of a man’s heart, where he worships God. God 
has had a very important part to play in a man’s income, and 
he will inevitably forget God unless he is impelled by a high 
sense of honor to turn back, in acknowledgment, a definite 
proportion of his income. The tithe is not binding because 
the Bible said so, but the Bible says so because it has to do 
with a fundamental relationship of life. The ten command- 
ments do not make murder and adultery wrong; they were 
wrong before there was a table written in stone. 

Jesus had little to say about the tithe. Only once did He 
mention it, and then incidentally, when He said: “ This 
ought ye to have done.” He was dealing with “ friends,” 
who had been trained under the Jewish law; they were no 
longer servants waiting for orders; they had graduated from 
the lower grades into the higher. They were now bound by 
a sense of honor, not orders. Is it possible to conceive that 
He would have scrapped all the training given to the Jewish 
people in their training for His Kingdom? He merely took 
some things for granted, and one of them was that they had 
learned to acknowledge God through the separated portion. 

Plain honesty in a partnership relation is absolutely funda- 
mental. We said in the beginning that honesty would re- 
quire a division of the profits. Moreover, it is one thing to 
make a contribution to a beggar on the street corner and 
another thing to divide profits with a partner. Listen to 
men talk about “ making contributions’’! Is the Silent Part- 
ner a common street beggar? Shall we ever keep the King- 
dom of Christ on the five-cent bargain counter, and seek to 
ease our souls by giving a little loose change that we may 
happen to have, to Him and His Kingdom? The great ma- 
jority of the people of the Church, otherwise good people, 
are literally robbing their Partner of His portion. The mo- 
ment a man accepts partnership with Christ he is driven to 
the policy of the separated portion. That belongs to Him. 
Then will come the problem of administering the remainder 
for and with Him. 

The separated portion does two things, in the language of 


THE FIELD OF PARTNERSHIP 71 


Ina C. Brown in her wonderful little book on Jesus’ Teach- 
ing on the Use of Money. It gives, first, the Kingdom of 
God a chance. Without it the claims of the Kingdom are 
completely shut out of a man’s life. The cry of the world; 
its sob and distress; the plea of want and poverty; the hope- 
lessness of heathenism; all these we never hear, shut in as 
we are in our comfortable homes. It gives, second, the soul 
a chance. With all the howling appeals that are constantly 
made to a man to gratify his senses there is no chance for 
his soul to develop unless he treats with a sacred sense of 
honor the separated portion as belonging to his Silent 
Partner. 


“Let us think for a moment what would happen if every 
church member in the United States should actually do as the 
Bible suggests and set aside one-tenth of his income for God. 
There are 40,000,000 members in our Christian churches with 
about $40,000,000,000 total annual income. Calculate the tremen- 
dous power summed up in one-tenth of that amount, $4,000,- 
000,000. Spent honestly and wisely, such a sum would furnish 
sufficient money in a few years to teach every living soul the prin- 
ciple of righteousness.”—-Roger Babson, Enduring Investments. 


Per capita wealth in this country has increased from $980 
in 1885, and $1,400 in 1909, to $2,900 in 1925. The National 
Bureau of Economic Research of New York City places the 
per capita income at $554 for 1924. Bear in mind that this 
includes every man, woman and child in this country, the 
immigrant, the Negro, and the driftwood of society. The 
income of the people of the Church would be a much larger 
figure. But one can take this low figure, multiply it by the 
total membership in his Church, and find out the very lowest 
estimate of the income of its people. Then he may deduct 
the total gifts made by his Church—and discover that some- 
body (and their name is “ legion”) is not being honest with 
the Partner. 

It is last of all a rewarding partnership. The covenant 
promise is: “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and 


72 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:23). Paul exclaims, with the 
triumph of a great faith: “For I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:38, 39). The re- 
wards of fellowship with Him are measured out both here 
and hereafter. What greater joy can a man have than to 
feel and know that he is, with Christ, driving the veil of 
darkness back, lifting the fallen that have fainted, bringing 
hope to the hopeless, curing the sore spots that infect so- 
ciety, giving sight to the sightless and salvation to the lost? 
Ah, material things remain just dead matter until touched by 
the power of Christ through a living partner, and then they 
become endowed with a spiritual power that transform life. 
In this transforming process the partner of Christ is the 
one charged with the responsibility and the one to whom is 
meted out the reward: “ Well done, thou good and faithful 
servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
make thee ruler over many things.” 

Consider for a moment what rewards men have lost and 
what glory has been taken away from our Lord, in that men 
have allowed the state through its paternalistic policy to 
minister to the needy. Legislation is constantly being urged 
for childhood, womanhood, old age, the cripple and the help- 
less of all classes. Men complain of this tendency, and have 
no one but themselves to blame. It might all have been 
done, and may yet be done, in the name of Christ. 

It is a wonderful thing, when one comes to think of it, to 
be invited into such a partnership, to create, accumulate, 
administer and share with Him in the profits and the re- 
wards. Is this a motive big enough? Men tell us that so- 
ciety is not yet ready for the altruistic motive to supplant 
the selfish motive of money-making. If so, then Christ was 
mistaken, and His program is but the dream of an idealist. 


Vill 


THE STORY OF ONE PARTNER 


“ That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship 
of his sufferings.”,-—PHIL. 3:10. 


“God give us men! A time like this demands 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands! 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill, 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, 
Men who possess opinions and a will, 
Men who love honor—men who cannot lie.” 
—J. G. Hou.anp. 


: HIS concluding chapter is largely about one man, a 
man who against great odds put into practise the 


fundamental principles of a partnership with Christ 
in a great industrial plant and in a business highly competi- 
tive, and who demonstrated that the Golden Rule in business 
is a workable plan. At his death he had written a new 
chapter in industrial relationships in the world, and left a 
name that will guide men in business for generations to 
come. It is better to have the story of one man who lived 
a partnership with Christ in business than a book of theory 
about it. This man was John J. Eagan of Atlanta, Georgia. 
We are especially indebted to Mr. Marion Jackson of At- 
lanta for the facts about Mr. Eagan’s career. Mr. Jackson 
plans to write his life story in book form. 

Eagan’s father was an orphan boy, and came to this coun- 
try as an immigrant, landing at Savannah, Georgia. He died 
as a result of disease contracted in the Civil War. John J. 
and his mother went to Atlanta when he was an infant. He 
engaged first as a clerk to his uncle on his mother’s side, 
from whom he received his training in business. He joined 
the Church at about fourteen years of age. Later he told 


73 


74 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


it on himself that the day he joined the Church he made a 
vow with God that if God would prosper him and make him 
rich, he would “do right by God” with his wealth. At about 
thirty his uncle died, leaving him a large legacy. 

He had a rather unique habit of writing out his prayers 
on scraps of paper, old letter-heads, bill-heads, or anything 
else that lay at hand. He never thought that these written 
prayers would fall into other hands; they were not written 
for others to see. On the day he received the above men- 
tioned legacy he wrote one of these prayers. It is in con- 
versational tone, as if he were face to face with God, talking 
to Him about what he should do with that much money; 
how to handle it; how to keep it from ruining him. Now, 
this from a man hardly thirty years old! In this and many 
other prayers there is this repeated expression: “O God, 
make a plain path for my feet.” 

His business prospered. He changed from one thing to 
another, because he was not satisfied that what he was doing 
would best serve God. He did not undertake to settle poli- 
cies for others, but only for himself. He became later 
identified with the American Cast Iron and Pipe Company 
of Birmingham, Alabama. His friends said, when they 
heard it: “ Somebody has handed John a gold brick.” ‘Not 
so with John Eagan and God! It became a gold mine. 

His views of industry and capital were that there were 
three parties to be considered, the employer, the employee 
and the buying public. Many men have considered only the 
first two. He felt that after a living wage was paid the 
employee, and a modest return allowed on the capital in- 
volved, the surplus, after necessary maintenance and enlarge- 
ment of the plant, should be used in reducing the price to 
the public. In order to carry out these views he was forced 
to buy a controlling interest in the plant and assume its 
direct management, which he never wanted to do. His mo- 
tives were never personal gain. Mr. Jackson says of him 
that he could easily have been one of the richest men of 
America, with his wonderful money-making talents. 


THE STORY OF ONE PARTNER 75 


He was deeply interested in the problem of Christianizing 
industry. He introduced the profit-sharing plan, with the 
employees and employee representation in management. In 
one year profits amounting to $200,000 which would ordi- 
narily have gone to the stockholders, of whom he was the 
principal one, were distributed to employees, over and above 
their regular wages. Shortly after the war, when so many 
enterprises were shutting down or cutting wages, he refused 
to do either, indicating that the welfare of the workers was 
his chief concern. One day, walking home with a Negro 
employee, he learned that the Negro was having difficulty 
in supporting his family and raising his children in a good 
neighborhood. He wrote his wife that night that he would 
look into the wages the father was receiving and see that 
they were raised. This from a busy millionaire! He volun- 
tarily reduced rents on his property in Atlanta soon after 
the outbreak of the war, when others were increasing rents. 
His plan of turning over in trust the common stock of 
the company to the employees on certain conditions, when 
it became public, made the business men of the world gasp. 
It occupied the front pages in the papers of New York City. 
When he saw one of these newspaper accounts, he wrote his 
wife as follows: 


“Tt does seem strange that the decision of Christian directors 
to practice the teachings of Christ in their business should cause 
newspaper comment. This means, however, that our example 
will have a national influence. What a tremendous responsibility 
it puts upon us! I know this following out of the principle of 
Christ is not to be easy. When was it ever easy to follow Him 
whose path led to the cross?” 


Again, he wrote his wife in regard to carrying out his 
program: 


“There are so many responsibilities, and such a great oppor- 
tunity. The real question is, Have I the spirit of Christ, and if 
so, have I enough of His life in me to settle this problem with 


76 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


these men? It is a hard task, and while He has blessed me in a 
measure I did not think possible I am confident we” (he and 
God) “seem to have made a little impression on some of our 
men. ‘Tio change men’s ideas so they prefer sacrifice for Christ 
to gain for self, can only be done by the power of Christ.” 


His program, which he put into effect after great opposi- 
tion from others interested in the profits of the business, was 
as follows: First, to assure a living wage to the workers, 
they themselves to determine what it should be; second, that 
a dividend of eight per cent be paid to the stockholders on 
money actually invested, out of the earnings; third, that the 
product be sold to the public as nearly at cost as possible; 
fourth, that the surplus earnings be divided equally among 
the employees and the management. He initiated many 
projects for the welfare of his employees, such as pro- 
viding a physician and dentist for them, the organization 
of a relief association for those incapacitated by sickness 
or accident, and the building of homes for them on the 
cost basis. 

While a large part of his time was taken up in the man- 
agement of his plant, for which he drew only a nominal 
salary, he was known among his closest friends as a great 

ersonal worker in the Church. A man told the writer how 
he came to Atlanta about twenty years ago and went, as he 
was forced to do, to a rather cheap boarding place. He did 
not know Mr. Eagan, and had no reason to think Mr. Eagan 
knew him. But one day Mr. Eagan called on him and asked 
him to go to Sunday School at the Central Presbyterian 
Church, of which he was superintendent. As an elder in 
the church he was never too busy with business to give the 
interests of the Kingdom first place. He was not considered 
a dreamer among his business associates but a business ex- 
ecutive of keen judgment, always sound and progressive. 
They reposed the utmost confidence in his practical judg- 
ment in business affairs. 

He turned over by a will, in one of the most remarkable 


THE STORY OF ONE PARTNER 77 


documents ever written in this country, the plant at Bir- 
mingham, Alabama, to the employees, the common stock to 
be held in trust on certain conditions. The following para- 
graph concludes this will and sets forth its purposes: 


“The trustees appointed by this codicil, in accepting the trust 
and acting hereunder, will be trustees both for said employees and 
said persons requiring the product of said company. It is my 
will and desire that said trustees in the control of said company, 
through the control of said common stock, shall be guided by the 
sole purpose of so managing said company as to enable said 
American Cast Iron Pipe Co. to deliver the company’s product 
to persons requiring it at actual cost, which shall be considered 
the lowest possible price consistent with the maintenance and 
extension of the company’s plant or plants and business and the 
payment of reasonable salaries and wages to all the employees of 
said company, my object being to insure ‘service’ both to the 
purchasing public and to labor on the basis of the Golden Rule 
given by our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

“This 3d day of April, 1923. 
“ (Signed) Joun J. Eacan.” 


He became, though not even a high school graduate, one 
of the greatest authorities in the United States on social 
questions, and was one of the principal factors in setting up 
the Inter-Racial Committee throughout the South, which has 
done more in a quiet way to adjust differences between 
whites and blacks, before an open outbreak, than any other 
one factor. No one ever knew how much money he gave 
away to benevolent and charitable objects. No worthy call 
ever found him indifferent. He kept a record, for himself 
alone, of his gifts, which began as a small boy at ten cents. 
He multiplied ten-fold the original legacy left him by his 
uncle, and in the meantime distributed enormous sums by 
gift. The balance of his estate, after his turning over the 
plant mentioned, was left in trust to his wife to carry out 
some of his plans. 

In concluding this remarkable story, nothing better could 
be added by way of comment than to quote at some length 


78 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


from an address he delivered to a group of business execu- 
tives on “ The Golden Rule in Business.” 


“T would call you to face your responsibility this morning as 
leaders of men. I may be talking to stockholders, executives or 
foremen. Whichever you may be, you have been given of God 
certain opportunities, certain talents. Men are under your direc- 
tion and control, and take the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ of the daily task 
from you as the manager over them. 

“The true function of industry today is MAKING MEN. How 
well have we succeeded? Statistics show that at least one-third, 
possibly one-half, of the families of wage earners employed in 
manufacturing and mining earn, in the course of the year, less 
than enough to support them in anything like a comfortable and 
decent condition. Do you men know the slums of your com- 
munity? In these slums you will find not only the down-and-out 
and the misfit, but many, many wage earners. On the other 
hand, you will find men broken by industry. Do you know that 
the number of men killed by industry in America averages 
twenty-five thousand a year, and that seven hundred thousand are 
injured in one way or another every year so as to be incapaci- 
tated for work four weeks and over? 

“Three, percent of our population own sixty percent of its 
wealth. Sixty- -six and two-thirds of the population own five 
percent of the wealth. An average of ten million people in our 
country are living in poverty. Corporations are organized for 
making money and we are all working for corporations. Now, 
how are we in a system, organized for making money to make 
men? 

“T would say, in the first place, that there are no soulless cor- 
porations. They are formed of human beings, stockholders, 
directors, officials, and all down to the smallest persons connected 
with them are human beings, and a human being has a soul, and 
so long as human beings can be converted, corporations can be 
converted. I don’t want a new system, but I am interested in 
changing the hearts of men. 

“First I name a living wage. We must first be honest. We 
have no right to rob the man who works honestly and faithfully 
of a good support for himself and his family in order to enrich 
the stockholders or even to serve the public. Tell me that a cor- 


THE STORY OF ONE PARTNER 79 


poration cannot afford to pay a living wage and I will tell you 
that corporation ought to go out of business. In your own cor- 
poration, how many of your men are living in places you would 
not live in? From four to eight times, according to different 
communities, as many babies die in the poorer sections where 
many of your workmen live, because they are unable to live else- 
where, than in well-to-do sections. In this country an average of 
two and a half million people are in bread lines and hunting jobs, 
while other men are working twelve hours a day and seven days 
in the week. I quote that great Quaker, Seebohn Rowntree, of 
England. He is the head of a plant employing some seven thou- 
sand people (cocoa and candy manufacturer). I heard him say 
in New York, to a little group of manufacturers gathered for a 
conference—‘I never go to sleep satisfied, and I never will until 
I shall be satisfied for my child to work in any position in our 
factories.’ Have we the right to be satisfied with anything less 
than that? 

“Second, we have the profit-sharing plan. 

“Third, we take care of the sick and their families without cost 
to them. In case of death there is a fund to pay funeral expenses 
of any employee or member of his family. 

“Fourth, we have the pension fund. Industry has no right to 
take a man, use the best years of his life, and as old age ap- 
proaches throw him on the scrap-heap. We have, in seven or 
eight years, set aside a fund of $250,000. It is one of the real 
joys to see men who otherwise would be dependent on their fami- 
lies, receiving monthly, through this fund, their own money, which 
they have earned, and which has been set aside in this fund. This 
is not deducted from their pay envelopes but from money appli- 
cable to dividends. 

“The last feature of our organization is employee representa- 
tion. This is fundamental if you would make men. ‘He who is 
always told what he must do never knows what he should do.’ 
No changes in working conditions, hours, or wages are made 
without consultation with this board. 

“May I close with a personal word. Men have asked, ‘Is your 
plan practical?’ That is not the question. The question is—‘ Is 
it right?’ Some men say—‘ If you are sure that the adoption of 
the principles of Jesus Christ in my business will make it suc- 
cessful, I will go all the way.’ There has not been a business 
man since the beginning of time who would not be glad to do 


80 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


that. If we cannot put Jesus in business we ought to get out of 
business, and get somewhere we can go with Jesus Christ. No 
man or business ever gave Him right of way but with profit to 
that man or business.” 


Is it any marvel that God honored such a life? Eagan - 
believed in the personal presence of his Lord, and that he 
and his Lord were full time partners. And (the thing we 
have been trying to say all through this book) Jesus became 
real to him in the handling of property. 

The future progress of the Church rests largely with the 
Christian Business Men of the world. Jesus must be intro- 
duced into our lowest relationships of life, if He is to direct 
and control our highest. We need in every community a 
small band of consecrated business men, capitalists, and 
wage-earners, who will come together with a high purpose 
to take Jesus as a partner in their business. Eagan never 
waited for others to act. He blazed the trail, that others 
must follow. But men acting alone often feel that they can 
accomplish little. If every man in every small community 
who feels the impulse to start anew in a program of part- 
nership with Christ will make his purpose known and invite 
others like-minded, of all communions, to join him, they will 
in a cooperative spirit be able to revolutionize their com- 
munity. Why not start in your community? 

A new day is dawning for the Church. The heralds of 
this new day have already appeared, in men like Eagan, all 
over the world. Shall the sons of the men who in great 
faith cleared our forests, tunnelled our mountains, bridged 
our rivers and thrust our railroads across a wild continent, 
met and overcame every difficulty in the material develop- 
ment of this Nation, now falter when the hour has struck 
for a great adventure in faith for the Kingdom of our Lord 
and His Christ? A generation ago the slogan was, “ Busi- 
ness is business.” Our civic clubs have made us see that, 
“ Business is Service.” And now the world waits for men 


who are ready for the slogan: Business is the Kingdom 
of God. 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 


CHAPTER I 
PASSAGE FOR SCRIPTURE Stupy: John, Chapter 15. 


Why is it important to have every relationship of life clearly 
defined ? 

What are the limits of Christ’s control over human life? 

Illustrate from experience the tendency of Christian people to 
separate the material and the spiritual in life. 

Explain the reason for this tendency. 
Do you agree that if Christ can be made real in the lower levels 
of life He will become more easily real in the upper levels? 
Has the approach of the Church on the property question been 
the best one? 

What constitutes the major reason why the Christian should have 
the right attitude towards property? 

What would you say the Church of today needs most? 

Will a correct attitude towards property serve to reach the 
desired end? 

What have you to say about the two areas in life—of Being and 
Doing? 

Can moral character be developed where there are no choices? 

Explain the absence of command in our Lord’s dealing with men 
on the matter of property. 


CHAPTER II 
PASSAGE FoR ScriprurE Stupy: I Corinthians, Chapter 3. 


Look up all Scripture references on fellowship, partnership, com- 
munion, partakers. 

Date of translation of King James Version? Why was the word 
fellowship at that time so often used? 

Is there inconsistency in a sharing with the Lord at the com- 
munion table by one who denies the share of the Lord in the 
lower levels of his life? 


81 


82 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


Discuss the elements of a partnership. 

Why were the trio of fishermen—Peter, James and John—typical 
Roman-law partners? 

Differentiate between an agent and a partner. 

Discuss at length the implications of an ordinary partnership. 

Is it necessary for all partners to furnish the same elements in 
establishing the partnership relation? 

How do our modern forms of partnership differ from the Roman 
form? 

What proportion of the total do you contribute in your partner- 
ship with Christ? 

Pecuniary gain being the purpose of a partnership, why do men 
shrink from thinking of this relationship with Christ? 

Illustrate from life how the material is the gateway to the 
spiritual. 


CHAPTER III 
PASSAGE FoR Scripture Stupy: I Corinthians, Chapter 12. 


Show from life how partnership begins that which fellowship 
consummates. 

Do you believe that there can be full fellowship with Christ 
where there is no sense of partnership with Him in material 
things? Discuss this. 

Why must things be put first in the development of spiritual life? 

What are the two-fold purposes of property discussed by the 
author? 

Illustrate the unity of life—first the material, then the spiritual. 
Prove or disprove the statements of the author from Scripture 
as to the place and function of things in the scheme of life. 

Show from Scripture how property and worship are related. 

Discuss the claim of the author that “get a man’s heart, you get 
his money” is a half-truth. Is he right or wrong? 

Discuss the case of the Macedonian Christians. 

Do you believe that the Church must wait for a revival on the 
attitude of its people towards property and its relationship to 
the Kingdom? 

How can the Church best proceed towards getting surrendered 
lives? 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 83 


Can the Church grow normally by shutting Christ out of the 
control of the lower levels of life? 


CHAPTER IV 
PASSAGE FoR ScRIPruRE Stupy: Matthew, Chapter 25. 


Discuss the meaning of “ The Kingdom of God.” 

Why did the Church come to think of the Kingdom as for and 
of another world? 

Discuss the two extreme views of the “ Kingdom.” With which 
do you agree? 

Discuss the content of the statement, “ Preaching the Gospel.” 

Has the Gospel a social message? Illustrate from Scripture. 

Have you observed any signs of a revolt against private prop- 
erty, as an institution, on the part of society? 

Discuss the growth of democracy and the rights of man. Com- 
pare the status of the common man with that of 100 years ago. 

Why is private property today the main citadel of attack? 

Do you believe there is anything wrong with the social order? 
Illustrate its injustices from experience or reading. 

What is the basis of the “social unrest” of today? 

Why does the author claim that the wrong attitude towards prop- 
erty is the mainspring of our social troubles? 

Show from Scripture that the teachings of Jesus, if applied, 
would settle the problems of social injustice. 


CHAPTER V 
PASSAGE For ScriprurE Stupy: Matthew 19: 16-30. 


Show how the New Testament teachings inspired the struggle 
for the rights of men. Is the movement altogether political ? 

What part has the Church played in this age-long struggle? 

Can the Church stand aside when it has the solution? 

Does this necessarily mean the union of Church and State? 

What have you to say as to the cause of pauperism, prostitution 
and crime? 

Are the under-privileged responsible for their condition? 

Does the attitude of the world as to property lessen or increase 
the class known as the under-privileged? 

Show how our system of civilization is built up largely on the 


84 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


theory of the sanctity of private property as an institution. 
Show the effects in history of the theory of individualism. 
How would you describe individualism? Examples today. 
How would you describe collectivism? How does it differ from 
socialism ? 
Show examples of the trend towards collectivism in this country. 
Objections to collectivism. 
Its effect on the old theories as to private property. 


CHAPTER VI 
PASSAGE For ScriptureE Stupy: Luke 19: 1-27. 


What two fundamentals as to any theory of private property 
must be kept inviolate? 

Show how individualism ignores one, and collectivism the other. 

Discuss Mr. Herbert Hoover’s statement of American Individual- 
ism and show how he is ahead of the individualism of the 
Old World. 

Show from Scripture how the teachings of Jesus occupy the mid- 
dle ground between individualism and collectivism. 

Are the teachings of Jesus impractical in a business world? 

Discuss “hoarded” wealth and used capital from His teachings. 

What does the author mean by Christian Individualism? 

Do you believe that society will secure the utmost of its portion 
of wealth under Christian Individualism ? 

What weakness in human nature makes necessary Christian 
Individualism ? 

Show how this will increase responsibility among those who are 
able to acquire wealth. 

Discuss the trend of the social order in the light of Professor 
Conklin’s figures. 

Show how Christian business men must adopt the teachings of 
Jesus or face the evils of collectivism. 


CHAPTER VII 
PASSAGE FOR SCRIPTURE StupY: Luke 16: 1-17. 


Illustrate what the author means by a creative partnership. 
What is life’s last great “lift” ? 


SUGGESTIONS FOR. STUDY 85 


Do you endorse the statement that our Lord never opposed the 
accumulation of capital? Draw distinctions here. 

Why is the administration of property or wealth the hardest of 
all elements in this partnership to live up to? 

Discuss the distribution of wealth as it is demanded by some 
social groups. 

Discuss the tithe in the light of a participating partnership. 

Explain the silence of Jesus on the tithe. 

What is the fundamental reason for the tithe? 

Discuss the effect of the tithe in your local church if practised by 
all its people. What would be the approximate income of 
your church? 

Does the spiritual nature of a man have a chance for develop- 
ment unless the principle of the separated portion is observed? 
Does the Kingdom of God have a chance without it? 

What are the rewards of the partnership relationship with 
Christ? 

Show how the paternalism of our Government is robbing Christ 
of glory that might be His. 


CHAPTER VIII 
PASSAGE FOR ScriprurE Stupy: Matthew, Chapter 7. 


Give briefly the story of John J. Eagan’s life. 

How did his theory of industry differ from that of others who 
have sought to apply the Golden Rule in business? 

Discuss his vow with God in the light of the vow made by Jacob? 

Was this cold-blooded bargaining? 

What was the secret of his business success? 

Has any Christian man the right to expect the blessing of God in 
his business who adopts the teachings of Christ as to property? 

Do you believe that the average worker in industrial life today 
gets his fair share of the profits of industry? Illustrate. 

Was Mr. Eagan’s plan practical? 

Can any one begin in a small way to practise partnership with 
Christ ? 

Are you willing to begin now to accept fully the partnership He 
offers? 

How can a few business men in a community get together on a 


86 ROYAL PARTNERSHIP 


program as outlined in this book, and change the attitude of 
the public towards property? 

Will you seek to get others to read this message on Royal 
Partnership ? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


(Only a small number of books are recommended here for further 
study. The majority of them are short and deserve careful reading. 
Those starred indicate copyrighted books from which material has 
been drawn by permission of the publishers.) 


*Property and Society, A. A. Bruce, A. C. McClurg and 
Company. 
*The Ethics of Jesus and Social Progress, Charles S. Gardner, 
George H. Doran Company. 
The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly, Macmillan 
Company. 
*American Individualism, Herbert Hoover, Doubleday, Page and 
Company. 
*The Conflict of Individualism and Collectivism, Charles W. 
Elliott, Chas. Scribner’s Sons. 
The Deeper Meaning of Stewardship, John M. Versteeg, The 
Abingdon Press. 
*Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money, Ina C. Brown, Cokesbury 
Press. 
*You and Yours, Guy L. Morrill, Fleming H. Revell Company. 
*The Church and Social Reforms, James R. Howerton, Fleming 
H. Revell Company. 
*The Changing Church and the Unchanging Christ, R. H. Coats, 
George H. Doran Company. 
The Call to Christian Stewardship, Julius Earl Crawford, Cokes- 
bury Press, 
*4 Man and His Money, Calkins, Methodist Book Concern. 
Stewardship for All of Life, Luther E. Lovejoy, Methodist Book 
Concern. 
*Property, Arthur Jerome Eddy, A. C. McClurg and Company. 
— *Social Gospel and Personal Religion, F. Ernest Johnson, Associ- 
ation Press. 
*The Direction of Human Evolution, Conklin, Charles Scribner’s 
Sons. 
*FEnduring Investments, Roger Babson, Macmillan Company. 
*Socialism and the Ethics of Jesus, Vedder, Macmillan Company. 


Printed. in the United States of America 
87 


i} Tar 
atta Mat 





CHURCH AND §. S. WORE 
rere ne TY EA 2 


SILAS EVANS, D.D., LL.D. 
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BIBLE STUDY 
er TAN? 


I, M. HALDEMAN, D D. 


How to Study the Bible 


The Second Coming and Other Expositions. 


New Ninth Edition. $2.00 
Out of the experience of a full and faithful minist 
Dr. Haldeman enlarges on a number of principles Shick 
make for an intelligent and satisfactory study of the Bible. 
Special attention is given by Dr. Haldeman to Dispensa- 
tional Truth of which he is one of the foremost protago- 
nists of the day. With Dispensational Chart in Colors. 


I. M. HALDEMAN, D.D. 


The Tabernacle Priesthood and 


Offerings Illustrated, $2.50 

With great wealth of detail, Dr. Haldeman shows how 

the framework, the coverings, the curtains, the hangings, 

the priesthood, the robes and the offerings of the Taber- 

nacle in the wilderness prefigured the Person, the work 
and the glory of Christ. 


J. C. MASSEE, D.D. 


Eternal Life in Action 
An Exposition of the First Epistle of John. $1.50 


“A very helpful and spiritual exposition of the First 
Epistle of John. A series of delightfully prepared dis- 
courses, richly illustrated and easy to read. Any one who 
loves to think along the lines of Christian truth and thought 
will be delighted to read them.”—Herald and Presbyter. 


R. A. TORREY, D.D. 


Getting the Gold Out of the Word 
of God Paper Special Net, 35c 


Bible study made easy under eleven y’’ suggestions: 
“<Daily,”?.:£¢ patetautiealiett “Comprehensively,” ‘*Consec- 
utively,” “Comparatively,” ‘‘Topically,” ‘“Attentively,’” 
“Believingly,” “Obediently,” “Prayerfully.” 


R. A. TORREY, D.D. 


The Bible, The Peerless Book 
Paper, Special Net, 35c 
Here is a mine, a treasure-house, a guide, and a source 
of inspiration. The work of a man who is as well rooted 
and grounded in the Holy Scripture as any man alive. 


JAMES H. BROOKES, D.D. 


An Outline of the Books of the Bible 


A Re-issue of a Well-known Book. $1.00 
One of the most helpful books on the complete Bible ever 
issued in compact form, It presents in brief outline 
rincipal design, together with the character and 
oe each of the sixty-six books of the Bible. 


LIFE’S PROBLEMS 
TE 


FREDERICK A. ATKINS 
Author of “Mortl Mascle”” 


Standing Up to Life 


Have We Lost the Secret of How to Live? $1.25 


_ Mr. Atkins writes with knowledge and sympathy con- 
cerning what almost everybody will concede most deeply 
concerns us all—the serious art of living. He argues for 
a more courageous attitude—one which the title of his 
book aptly and fittingly describes. 

The author says: ‘*The world is restless and distracted 
because it has rejected the teaching of Jesus. If the world 
is to escape disaster, it must turn to Christ and follow his 
way of living.’ 


GEORGE ESDRAS BEVANS 


The Master as Paymaster 
President of the Babson Statistical Organization 


Introduction by Roger W. Babson. $1.25 


S. Parkes Cadman, D.D., says: ‘“‘A real contribution to 
homiletics.” Dr. Hugh Black, D.D., says: ‘“‘Mr. Bevans 
emphasizes an aspect of the Christian life well worth the 
emphasis.” | Frederick Lynch, D.D., says: “I found it 
not only stimulating to thought, but inspiring spiritually 
and full of encouragement.” 


JOHN E. CALFEE, LL.D. 
Doing the Impossible 


Chapel-Talks to Young Men and Women. $1.00 


A group of bright, sensible talks specially addressed to 
young people who are standing on the threshold of life’s 
more serious purposes. Dr. Calfee talks as a man to his 
fellow-pilgrims, yet as one who has been on the life’s road 
a little longer than_those he addresses, and out of his 
riper experiences, offers sound advice. 


EDWARD BURSELL MOODY 


The Great Quest 


Illustrated, $1.00 


A thoughtful little book written for thoughtful people. 
ived in a spirit of reverent inquiry, and couched in 
chaste, choice diction, Mr. Moody’s work attains a rich and 
all-pervasive spiritual quality which radiates from every 
Page. 


EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 








WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 


The Last Message of William Jennings 


Bryan The Undelivered Address. $1.00 
A book, for which the Christian world is looking, This 
undelivered address is a summation of all that the great 
Commoner had gathered in defense of the orthodox po- 
sition in his fight against Evolutién. So keen was Mr. 
Bryan’s desire for its publication that he autographed a 
letter to his publisher, only a few hours before his death, 
giving the directions about its contents. 
—With Foreword by Mrs. Bryan. 


GEORGE McCREADY PRICE, M.A. 


The Phantom of Organic Evolution 
$1.50 
*No one can well know both sides of this much debated 
problem until he has read this book. It is a vigorous pre- 
sentation of his position and will set many thinking over 
the ground again.’”’—Presbyterian Advance. 


CHRISTABEL PANKHURST 


Some Modern Problems in the Light 
of Bible Prophecy $1.50 


*“‘Miss Pankhurst writes an interesting, deeply religious, 
and purposeful warning to the world, basing it on the 
Bible prophecies concerning the years of the tribulations, 
the coming of Antichrist, and the final chaos that the 
prophets foretold would precede the second coming of 
Jesus in the flesh.—Rochester Herald, 


THOMAS JOLLIE SMITH, M.A. Univ. of Melbourne 


Studies in Criticism and Revelation 


With Foreword by Frederick W. Norwood, 
D.D. (City Temple, London). $1.50 
, “The evangelical Christian believer will experience great 
oy in the reading of this book. It will warm his heart, 

he book is most timely—just needed in a crisis like this. 


Written in a clear, attractive style, the book almost reads 
itself.”"—Leander S. Keyser. 


NEW EDITIONS 


In His Image 
By William Jennings Bryan. $1.75 


Seven Questions in Dispute Shall Chris- 


tianity Remain Christian? 
William Jennings Bryan, $1.25 


Jesus Christ at the Crossroads 
By A, Z, Conrad, D.D, $1.25 


LECTURES AND EXPOSITIONS 


FREDERIC C SPURR 
Author of “The Master Key,” etc. 
The New Psychology and the 


Christian Faith $1.50 

A study of ‘“‘new”’ psychology, its relation to and bearing 

on the evangelical Christian faith. A work of unusual in- 

terest in which is ably demonstrated that the faith which 

accepts and relies on the incoming of a Higher Power in 

the person and spirit of Jesus Christ, has nothing to 
fear from the findings of the modern psychologist. 


CONSTANCE L. MAYNARD 
The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like... 


$1.2 

An engaging and engrossing book written by a cultured, 

deeply devotional teacher possessed of a simplicity of style 

connoting authentic scholarship. Miss Maynard addresses 

herself to the task of rendering the primary truths of 

religion the more real and attractive by an appeal to 
the witness of nature. 


PHILO W SPRAGUE 


The Influence of Christianity on 


Fundamental Human Institutions 


The Bohlen Lectures, 1924. $r.50 

A four-fold discussion of the position that the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ is a system of belief which is intended to 
express itself, not only in individual conduct and char- 
acter, but in fundamental human institutions, Mr. S rague 
ably considers its application to the Church, the Family, 
the State, and the Industrial System. 


W. J. FARLEY, M.A., B D. 
The Progress of Old Testament 


Prophecy 
In the Light of Modern Scholarship. With two 


appendices chronological table and index. $2.00. 
“This book is to be welcomed. Mr. Farley has packed 
@ vast amount of information into his pages, Ministers 
and teachers who want a short review of the Prophets 
will find it here, set forth in a straight-forward and vig- 
orous fashion.’”’——The British Weekly. 


RT, REV. J C. RYLE Late Bishop of Liverpoal 
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels 


seven volumes. New Popular Edition. 
7 vols., each $1.50; the set $8.50 net 
"Ryle is thoroughly evangelical, clear-sighted as to prin- 
ciple and an utter enemy of cant and shams of every 
kind.”—Southwestern Presbyterian, 
MATTHEW MARK LUKE Vou.I LUKE Vou. II 
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